LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


Bond  HARRIS 


JESUS  AND  PAUL 


BT 

BENJAMIN  W 

.  BACON 

Galatians 

Introduction 

TO   THE 

New  Testament 

The  Sermon 

ON    THE 

Mount 

JESUS  AND  PAUL 

LECTURES 

GIVEN  AT  MANCHESTER  COLLEGE,  OXFORD, 
FOR  THE  WINTER  TERM,  1920 


BY 

BENJAMIN  W.  BACON 

D.D. 

Buckingham  Professor  of  New  Testament  Criticism 
and  Interpretation  in  Yale  University 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1921 

AU  rights  reserved 


C0PYRI6HT,    1921, 

By  the  macmillan  company 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  March,  igax. 


TO 
THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD 

IN  GRATEFUL  REMEMBRANCE  OF  THE  DEGREE 

OF  DOCTOR  OF  LETTERS  CONFERRED 

MARCH  9.  1920 


PREFACE 

The  following  course  of  lectures  was  delivered  at 
Manchester  College,  Oxford,  during  the  Hilary  (mid- 
winter) term,  1920.  Previous  engagements  had  com- 
pelled the  lecturer  to  reduce  the  period  of  his  stay  from 
the  full  year  originally  proposed  to  these  relatively  nar- 
row limits.  This  drew  from  Principal  Jacks  the  sugges- 
tion that  the  topic  be  made  comprehensive,  in  order  to 
afford  a  completer  survey  of  the  lecturer's  understand- 
ing of  New  Testament  Literature.  With  this  design 
in  view  a  subject  was  chosen  which  has  of  late  received 
the  attention  of  many  scholars,  but  which  seemed  capa- 
ble of  a  mode  of  treatment  emphasizing  the  relation  of 
growth  rather  than  that  of  mere  apposition  or  contrast. 
The  transition  from  the  gospel  of  Jesus  to  the  gospel 
of  Paul  might  thus  be  studied  in  a  way  to  make  it  a 
means  of  relating  the  whole  group  of  writings  of  the 
New  Testament  canon  to  the  general  movement  of  reli- 
gious thought  and  life  from  which  they  sprang. 

The  course  as  originally  given  contained  but  eight 
lectures.  At  its  conclusion  the  lecturer  was  asked  to 
take  part  in  the  Oxford  Summer  School  of  Theology 
in  the  ensuing  August,  with  the  suggestion  that  the 
closing  lecture  of  the  original  course  (on  the  Johannine 
Literature)  should  be  expanded  into  two  for  this  pur- 
pose. The  suggestion  was  adopted,  and  the  Lectures 
as  printed  are  therefore  nine  in  number,  the  added  ma- 
terial of  Lectures  VIII  and  IX  being  inclosed  in  []. 

In  submitting  his  work  to  the  judgment  of  a  wider 
public  the  lecturer  aspires  to  no  richer  reward  than  to 


Vlll  PEEFACE 


win  an  approval  in  some  degree  approximating  the 
generosity  of  treatment  accorded  at  the  ancient  seat  of 
English,  culture  and  religious  thought. 

New  Haven,  Ct.,  September,  1920. 


CONTENTS 

LECTTTBB  FACE 

I    Introductory     1 

n    Beginnings    and    Growth    op    the    Gospel    op 

Reconciliation 27 

m    The  Transfiguration  of  the  Gospel   ....     53 

rV    The  Transfiguration  of  the  Gospel  (Continued)     79 

V    The  Heavenly  Intercessor  as  Seen  and  Inter- 
preted BY  Paul 107 

VI  Back  to  Galilee.    The  Witness  of  Peter    .     .  137 

Vn  The  Gospel  as  Law  and  Promise 170 

Vm  The  Gospel  as  Theology 198 

IX  The  Message  op  the  Fourth  Evangelist  .     .     .  225 


JESUS  AND  PAUL 

LECTUEE  I 

INTROD-UCTOEY 

THE    PHASES    OF    NEW    TESTAMENT    LITERATUHE,    AS    SEr 
FLECTING   THE   MOVEMENT   OF  KELIGIOTJS   LIFE 

1.  The  Phases  of  the  Literature 

The  aim  that  we  are  pursuing  in  common  in  this  brief 
course  of  study  is  an  analysis  of  the  early  literature  of 
Christianity  in  order  to  get  at  the  springs  of  its  life. 
We  are  to  apply  without  reserve  or  restriction  every 
process  of  historical  and  literary  criticism  which  mod- 
ern science  places  within  our  reach.  We  do  this  be- 
cause as  rational  students  of  the  history  of  civilization 
no  less  than  as  Christian  believers  we  are  persuaded  of 
the  preeminent  value  of  Christianity  as  a  force  operative 
in  the  social  organism.  For  as  such  it  made  itself  felt 
in  the  reconstruction  of  the  world  which  followed  upon 
the  downfall  of  Graeco-Eoman  heathenism,  and  the  ele- 
ments of  its  power  are  still  available.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  our  era  national  religion  in  the  form  of  emperor- 
worship  gave  way  to  the  Old  Testament  ideal  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God  in  Christianized  form.  Personal  re- 
ligion, which  had  taken  the  form  of  various  oriental 
mystery  religions  and  cults  of  individual  immortality, 
also  gave  way.  It  yielded  to  the  doctrine  of  an  eternal 
life  in  the  keeping  of  Christ  with  God.  National  re- 
ligion and  personal  religion  were  combined  in  new 
forms,  and  the  combination  led  to  the  conversion  of 


Z  JESUS    AND    PATTL 

Europe.  We  look  to  it  still  to  effect  the  Christianization 
of  the  world. 

Enquiry  of  the  sort  here  proposed  implies,  of  course, 
the  application  of  quite  a  new  form  of  the  doctrine  of 
Sacred  Scripture.  Eevelation  and  Inspiration  will  take 
on  for  us  an  altered  meaning.  Conservative  brethren 
may  even  deny  our  right  to  apply  the  ancient  terms  to 
the  new  doctrine.  But  unless  I  quite  mistake  the  mean- 
ing of  Jesus,  of  Paul,  and  of  that  great  disciple  of  Paul 
at  Ephesus  to  whom  tradition  assigns  the  name  of  John, 
this  is  exactly  what  the  New  Testament  calls  upon  us  to 
do.  A  Christian,  as  against  a  mere  rabbinic  doctrine  of 
Sacred  Scripture,  implies  making  of  the  letter  a  means 
of  access  to  the  eternal  Spirit,  and  as  such  subordinate. 
The  effort  of  Jesus  and  Paul  was  to  secure  this  subor- 
dination. They  stood  opposed  to  a  religion  of  the  letter, 
of  the  scribe,  of  the  written  authority  of  a  sacred  book. 
Jesus  waged  his  conflict  against  the  "  lawyers  "  who  had 
changed  the  vital  relation  of  sons  to  a  Father  in  Heaven 
into  legalism  and  book-religion.  Paul  attacked  "  the 
law."  He  took  the  conflict  over  into  the  abstract  as  an 
opposition  between  Law  and  Grace. 

After  Paul  came  reaction.  The  compiler  of  our  first 
Gospel  takes  the  view-point  of  the  neo-legalist. 
"  Matthew,"  as  we  call  him,  is  a  scribe  instructed  unto 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  bent  at  all  costs  on  keeping  in 
his  treasure  both  the  new  and  the  old.  Such  is  also  the 
view-point  of  the  Epistles  of  James  and  Jude,  and  of 
most  of  the  ecclesiastical  literature  of  the  post-apostolic 
period. 

But  again  the  pendulum  swings  forward.  The  Ephe- 
sian  evangelist,  to  whom  tradition  gives  the  name  of 
"  John,"  lifts  the  whole  debate  to  a  higher  level.  For 
him  the  value  of  the  records  of  religion  in  the  past  is 
their  ability  to  bring  men  into  vital  contact  with  the  life 
of  God  in  man,  "  the  life,"  as  he  calls  it,  "  even  the 


INTRODUCTORY  3 

eternal  life,  which  was  from  the  beginning,  which  was 
with  the  Father,  and  was  manifested  to  us  in  the  form  of 
a  living  Word,  so  that  our  eyes  could  see  it  and  our  hands 
handle  it,  a  Word  of  life  with  which  we  still  have  an 
eternal,  imperishable  fellowship."  In  his  interpretative 
Gospel  this  deutero-Pauline  evangelist  introduces  a  scene 
of  Jesus  as  the  incarnate  Logos  in  dispute  with  the 
scribes  concerning  the  authority  of  Moses  and  the  Law. 
It  is  Paulinism  in  other  language.  The  heart  of  it  lies 
in  Jesus'  rebuke  of  the  scribes'  conception  of  Scripture 
and  its  value  to  religion.  To  them  Scripture  was  sim- 
ply a  collection  of  authoritative  precepts,  obedience  to 
which  would  win  them,  the  reward  of  a  share  in  the 
world  to  come.  To  him  it  was  a  voice  of  the  indwell- 
ing God.  "  Ye  search  the  Scriptures,"  he  says  to  his  J^  £",  A 
detractors,  "  because  ye  think  that  in  them  ye  have  eter- 
nal life;  and  they  are  they  that  testify  of  me;  but  ye  '^.i^o 
would  not  come  unto  me  that  ye  might  have  life." 

This  Johannine  principle  is  the  Church's  charter  of 
intellectual  freedom.  We  shall  search  the  Scriptures  as 
never  before ;  but  not  because  we  think  that  in  them,  but 
only  through  them,  we  have  eternal  life.  They  bear  wit- 
ness to  One  that  has  it,  an  eternal  Wisdom  of  God  who 
spake  by  the  prophets,  and  was  incarnate  in  Christ. 

Historico-critical  analysis  does  not  disregard  the  au- 
thority of  the  I^ew  Testament.  It  seeks  it  on  a  higher 
level.  We  search  the  Scriptures  in  order  that  we  may 
bring  ourselves  and  others  into  contact  through  them 
with  the  life  of  the  eternal  Logos,  "  the  life  that  was 
from  the  beginning  with  the  Father,"  that  lies  latent 
in  the  outward  universe  of  order  and  law,  that  slumbers 
in  the  brute  and  dreams  in  man,  but  awakes  to  full  con- 
sciousness in  sons  who  know  the  Father ;  ^  the  Logos  that 

1  Compare  Philo  (conf.  ling.  28)  :  "  Those  who  have  real  knowl- 
edge of  the  one  Creator  and  Father  of  all  things  are  rightly  called 
*  Sons  of  God.'  And  even  if  we  are  not  yet  worthy  to  be  called 
'  Sons  of  God,'  we  may  deserve  to  be  called  children  of  His  eternal 


4  JESUS    AND    PATTL 

is  not  only  "latent"  (evSta^eros  as  the  Stoics  said),  but 
also  "  manifest  "  (Trpo(j>opiK6s)  ;  "  for  the  life  was  mani- 
fested, and  we  have  seen,  and  bear  witness,  that  ye  may 
have  fellowship  with  us;  yea,  and  our  fellowship  is 
with  the  Father,  and  with  his  Son,  Jesus  Christ." 

Christianity  comes  down  to  us  as  the  triumphant  sur- 
vivor in  the  conflict  of  religions  in  the  Roman  Empire ; 
a  survivor  not  by  accident,  nor  by  superhuman  interven- 
tion from  without,  but  by  an  inherent  fitness  to  be  the 
religion  of  a  civilized  and  united  humanity.  Its  ideal 
was  tliat  of  a  kingdom  of  God,  a  universal  sovereigTity  of 
law  and  order  in  a.  commonweal  of  righteousness,  peace, 
and  good  will.  This  ideal  was  primarily  social,  though 
individualism  was  already  strongly  felt.  Taken  over 
from  Judaism  and  glorified,  the  doctrine  of  the  King- 
dom of  God  proved  more  acceptable  in  the  long  run  to 
the  mass  of  populations  mingled  in  the  Empire  than  the 
ideal  of  Eome's  world-religion :  Emperor-worship  as  the 
symbolic  expression  of  a  supreme  loyalty  to  the  genius 
of  the  Roman  world  order.  "  Christian  "  civilization 
on  its  social  side  means  the  adoption  of  Jesus'  ideal.  It 
centers  in  the  prayer:  "  Thy  kingdom  come." 

What  CiEsar-worship  had  to  commend  it  may  be  rea- 
lized by  comparing  in  our  own  time  the  patriotic  devo- 
tion of  which  Japanese  emperor-worship  is  capable.  I 
will  not  speak  of  the  extravagances  of  a  nominally  Chris- 
tian empire,  whose  dominant  caste  aspired  but  recently 
to  unify  the  world  under  its  own  Kultur.  Civilization 
in  the  period  of  the  Caesars,  centered  around  the  Medi- 
terranean, took  over  the  Hellenistic  conception  of  a  su- 
preme governor  in  whom  as  the  embodiment  of  law  and 
order  in  the  commonwealth  the  divine  impulse  that  con- 
trols the  progress  of  humanity  is  manifest.  Rejecting 
pagan  imperialism  the  civilization  which  centers  around 

'image,'  the  most  holy  T^gos."     Of.  Mt.   11:  27;   Jn.    1:  12,   18; 
17:  3;    I   Jn.   3:  1-3;    4:  7;    5:  1-5,   18. 


INTEODUCTOKY  O 

the  Atlantic  has  preferred  to  take  over  its  social  ideal  in 
the  Christian  form.  And,  as  we  have  seen,  the  basis  of 
this  ideal  was  the  divine  sovereignty  sung  by  Hebrew 
prophets  and  Psalmists.  We  have  scarcely  emerged  as 
yet  from  the  convulsive  struggle,  but  we  are  done  at  last 
with  the  Roman  ideal,  which  made  slavery  the  lowest 
social  stratum  and  military  autocracy  the  highest.  The 
mediaeval  ideal,  it  has  been  said,  was  the  City  of  God. 
It  may  seem  to-day  to  be  not  only  distant  but  receding. 
Still  it  came  within  view,  and  the  vision  still  lives  as 
the  goal  of  religion  on  its  social  side. 

Graeco-Roman  civilization  took  over  also  the  essential 
ideals  of  individual  religion  as  embodied  in  the  Oriental 
cults  of  personal  redemption.  For  far  and  wide  ancient 
forms  of  nature-worship  had  been  recast  into  "  myster- 
ies "  through  whose  rites  the  devotee  sought  to  share  in 
the  immortality  attained  hj  the  dying  and  rising 
Savior-god.  The  modern  world  has  adopted  this  re- 
ligious ideal  also.  But  it  has  preferred  to  take  it  over 
in  the  Christianized  form  of  assimilation  to  the  death 
and  life  of  Jesus,  self-devoted  for  the  kingdom's  sake  and 
for  the  brotherhood ;  rather  than  in  the  Oriental  form  of 
assimilation  to  the  death  and  life  of  some  mythical  hero 
or  demi-god  who  was  very  far  from  representing  in  his 
reputed  career  the  noblest  aspirations  of  humanity. 

Christianity  comes  down  to  us,  then,  as  the  survivor 
in  the  great  imperial  melting-pot  of  national  and  per- 
sonal religions,  triumphant  because  worthy,  surviving 
because  fitted  to  survive.  The  select  literature  of  its 
age  of  conquest  is  the  New  Testament,  a  group  of  writ-- 
ings  enshrined  by  the  Church  through  the  centuries  as 
the  very  well-spring  of  its  life.  To  reverent  and  sympa- 
thetic scrutiny  this  literature  should  yield  up  something 
of  the  secret  of  the  triumph.  We  may  not  thereby  bring 
ourselves  in  immediate  view  of  the  absolute  religion, 
but  we  may  at  least  expect  to  advance  a  stage  in  sorely 


O  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

needed  preparation  for  wise  direction  and  culture  of  the 
religious  impulse  in  our  own  disordered  generation. 

It  is  natural  to  our  way  of  thinking  to  imagine  the 
first  propagandists  of  our  faith  advancing  into  the 
heathen  world  around  them  armed  with  an  impervious 
religious  system  of  their  own,  inchoate,  if  not  complete, 
ready  for  acceptance  hy  converted  Gentiles.  Early  in 
the  second  century  the  Syrian  church  had  indeed  pro- 
duced a  compact  manual  of  Christian  ethics  and  escha- 
tology  known  as  The  Teaching  of  the  Twelve.  That 
might  perhaps  be  called  a  system  in  miniature.  But  the 
gospel  of  Paul  was  not  a  hook.  When  he  and  his  mis- 
sionary associates  set  out  to  convert  the  Empire  none  of 
them  had  so  much  as  thought  of  putting  their  message  in 
written  form.  Their  one  book  of  religious  faith  and 
practice  was  the  Synagogue  Bible,  the  Greek  Old  Testa- 
ment. This  they  had  learned  to  interpret  in  a  new  way, 
some  indeed  not  much  otherwise  than  the  scribes,  but 
others  more  in  the  spirit  of  the  Friend  of  publicans  and 
sinners.  Their  religion  was  Judaism  —  more  or  less 
transfigured  —  and  it  carried  with  it  the  Bible  of  Juda- 
ism. But  this  was  not  their  special  message.  For  their 
message  they  borrowed  a  term  from  Isaiah,  calling  it 
"  the  gospel  of  peace,"  glad  tidings  of  reconciliation 
with  God,  of  a  coming  renewal  of  the  world  through  the 
man  ordained  of  God  by  the  resurrection.  The  message 
was:  Forgiveness  of  sins.  The  fourth  evangelist  ex- 
presses it  in  his  report  of  the  Commission  of  the  Twelve 
by  their  risen  Lord :  "  He  said  unto  them  '  Peace  be 
unto  you.  As  the  Father  hath  sent  me,  I  also  send  you.' 
Then,  breathing  upon  them,  he  said :  ^  Receive  ye  the 
Holy  Ghost:  Whosesoever  sins  ye  forgive  they  are  for- 
given them.'  "  ^ 

2  Principal  Forsyth  in  an  article  quoted  by  Principal  Garvie 
{The  Ritschlian  Theology,  p.  420)  makes  a  statement  which  how- 


INTEODUCTOET  7 

This  "  gospel,"  so  far  as  it  found  visible  expression, 
was  embodied,  after  the  manner  of  ancient  religion,  not 
in  books  but  in  symbolic  ritual.  Christianity  consisted 
in  the  ordinances  and  their  interpretation.  When  Saul 
the  persecutor  was  called  upon  to  identify  his  victims  he 
did  not  search  for  writings.  It  is  not  even  likely  that 
as  a  Jew  he  would  think  of  cross-examination  on  points 
of  doctrine.  Jewish  orthodoxy  is  guaranteed  not  by  ac- 
ceptance of  a  statement  of  belief,  but  by  a  sacramentum, 
an  oath  of  loyalty  to  Jehovah  the  one  God,  in  whose 
service  every  capacity  of  man's  nature  should  be  united. 
Its  "  creed  "  is  the  so-called  Shema,  the  same  "  yoke  of 
the  divine  sovereignty "  which  Jesus,  like  many  an- 
other Jewish  martyr,  took  on  him  when  he  went  to  his 
death. ^  What  Saul  the  persecutor  saw  and  resented 
in  the  spreading  sect  was  a  new  loyalty.  It  was  attested 
by  baptism,  a  new  sacramentum,  a  ritual  act  of  self- 
dedication  whose  significance  was  renewed  by  a  fre- 
quently repeated  memorial  act  of  fellowship. 

The  Nazarenes,  or  Christians,  were  the  people  who 
practiced  the  rites  of  baptism  and  the  Supper.  The  lat- 
ter, a  token  of  their  "  communion  "  or  "  partnership  " 
(Kotvwvia),  as  they  called  it,  came  from  the  very  hand 
and  voice  of  Jesus  himself  on  the  night  of 
his  delivering  up  to  the  cross.  The  Church  re- 
peated his  farewell  message  to  the  disciples  in 
his  own  words,  it  reenacted  the  supreme  parable  by 
which  he  had  sealed  his  meaning  on  their  hearts.  In 
substance  the  supper  was  an  act  of  self-dedication  in 
which  Jesus  "  covenanted  "  (Luke  22  :  29,  Start^j^/xt  v/xlv) 
that  the  life  he  was  willingly  surrendering  in  the  cause 

ever  sweeping  seems  to  me  historically  justified:  "Christianity 
is  forgiveness,"  and  he  adds,  "  there  is  no  forgiveness  dissociated 
from  the  cross."  That  also  I  believe  to  be  a  fact  as  descriptive 
of  the  special  message  of  the  primitive  evangelist,  or  missionary. 
Of  course  it  is  not  true  of  Jesus'  own  preaching  in  Galilee. 
3^Ik.  12:28-30. 


8  JESUS   AND   PAUL. 

of  the  Kingdom  should  be  a  sacrifice  to  God  on  Israel's 
behalf.  As  other  Jewish  martyrs  had  done  before  his 
time,*  he  oifered  his  body  and  blood  to  God  as  a  "  pro- 
pitiation "  (tAao-/i,ds)  on  behalf  of  his  people,  and  in  a 
faith  which  not  even  the  shadow  of  the  cross  could 
darken  he  gave  tryst  to  those  who  had  been  with  him  in 
his  trials  at  the  banquet  of  the  redeemed.  He  would 
meet  them  again  at  his  table  in  his  Kingdom.  This 
"  covenant "  (Sta^^K?^)  is  the  essence  of  the  rite.  As 
II.  Mace.  7 :  3G  says  of  the  martyrs  who  "  offered  up 
both  body  and  life  for  the  laws  of  their  fathers,  entreat- 
ing God  that  He  would  speedily  be  propitiated  for  their 
nation,"  Jesus  also  "  died  under  a  God-given  '  cove- 
nant '  of  everlasting  life." 

The  initial  observance  which  marked  the  Christian 
of  Paul's  day  was  baptism ;  not  instituted  by  Jesus  him- 
self during  his  earthly  life,  but  adapted  by  his  disciples 
from  the  practice  by  which  his  predecessor  John  had 
symbolized  repentance  from  all  the  evil  past  in  prepara- 
tion for  Jehovah's  coming  to  inaugurate  his  reign  on 
earth.  The  disciples  of  Jesus  adopted  it  almost  coinci- 
dently  with  the  awakening  of  their  belief  in  the  Master's 
victory  over  death  and  his  exaltation  to  the  throne  of 
heavenly  glory  to  await  a  prompt  return.^  And  in 
adopting  it  they  were  convinced  that  they  were  acting 
under  the  direction  of  his  Spirit.  To  them  the  rite 
was  the  believer's  logical  response  to  the  "  covenant  in 
the  blood  of  the  Master.  The  Supper  symbolized 
Jesus'  self-dedication  unto  death  in  their  behalf.  "  My 
life  .  .  .  for  you,"  those  are  its  keywords.  Baptism 
signified  their  participation  in  this  death,  an  answering 

4  IV  Mace.  6:  27-29;   17:  8-22. 

B  Save  for  the  vague  generalization  of  Mt.  28:  19,  the  Gospels 
leave  us  in  the  dark  as  to  the  occasion  of  this  significant  adop- 
tion of  the  Johannine  rite;  for  Jno.  3:  22  has  reference  to  pre- 
Christian   baptism   only. 


INTEODUCTOBT  9 

penitent  renunciation  of  all  the  evil  past  and  a  self -dedi- 
cation under  this  God-given  Christ.  Taking  upon 
them  his  name,  and  invoking  him  as  "  Lord,"  they  gave 
themselves  to  the  same  cause  for  which  he  had  given  his 
life,  and  in  which  he  had  also  received  it  back  again 
with  eternal  glory.  In  baptism  men  became  "  vota- 
ries "  of  the  glorified  "  Lord  "  who  for  their  sakes  had 
"  devoted  "  himself.  They  were  buried  together  with 
Christ  that  they  might  participate  also  in  his  resurrec- 
tion. And  their  faith  and  loyalty  received  as  it  were 
the  seal  of  a  divine  approval;  for  ecstatic  powers  and 
manifestations  followed  upon  the  act,  marking  every 
assembly  of  the  "  brethren "  of  this  "  Way  "  as  men 
who  (in  their  own  estimation  at  least)  had  experienced 
that  "  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  "  which  according  to  the 
prophets  was  to  characterize  the  opening  of  the  mes- 
sianic age.® 

Not  books,  then,  but  these  two  observances  form  the 
true  Ur-evangelium.  "  As  often  as  ye  eat  this  bread 
and  drink  this  cup,"  says  Paul,  "ye  do  tell  the  story 
(KaTayye'XAcTc)  of  the  Lord's  death  until  he  come."  If 
he  had  been  thinking  of  the  Greek  mysteries  instead  of 
the  Jewish  Eedemption  feast  with  its  ritual  "  telling 
of  the  tale"  (haggada)  of  Jehovah's  deliverance,  he 
might  have  said  "  ye  do  reenact  the  drama."  But  it 
is  only  the  coloration  of  the  primitive  rites  which  is 
Hellenistic,  the  basis  is  Jewish.  The  primitive  "  teach- 
ings of  baptisms "  are  less  certainly  identifiable,  but 
they  undoubtedly  had  to  do  with  the  putting  off  of  the 
old  man  with  his  sinful  deeds,  and  the  putting  on  of  the 
new  man  endowed  with  a  new  and  heaven-sent  life. 

Such,  then,  was  the  true  "  beginning  of  the  Gospel." 
The  sacraments  came  first,  the  literature  came  after- 
ward. It  grew  up  around  the  sacraments,  interpreting 
and  enforcing  their  lessons.     The  first  disciples  did  not 

•  Kom.  6:  1-11;  I  Cor.  10:  1-22. 


10  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

appeal,  as  we  do,  to  two  witnesses,  the  Spirit  and  tlie 
Word,  but  to  three :  the  Spirit  outpoured  from  heaven ; 
and  the  water ;  and  the  blood. 

The  proof  of  it,  if  we  needed  proof,  is  the  maimer  in 
which  Epistles  and  Gospels  alike  concentrate  about 
these  two  foci.  In  the  great  doctrinal  Epistles  of  Paul 
there  are  always  just  these  two  central  ideas:  Justi- 
fication and  Sanctification,  or  (as  we  might  better  say) 
Life  in  the  Spirit.  But  justification  is  simply  an  ex- 
pansion of  the  theme  of  the  new  covenant  in  the  blood 
of  Christ  shed  for  many  for  the  remission  of  sins,  and 
Life  in  the  Spirit  is  an  expansion  of  the  teaching  of 
baptism,  which  was  a  "  bath  of  regeneration,"  a  birth 
into  the  eternal  life,  the  life  of  the  risen  Christ.  !Not 
the  great  Epistles  only,  but  Gospel  narrative  also  in  its 
general  outline  falls  into  just  the  same  two  divisions. 
It  has  a  Galilean  ministry  which  tells  the  story  of  how 
Jesus  received  the  Spirit  of  Adoption  to  Sonship  at  his 
baptism,  and  thereafter  went  about  manifesting  its  pow- 
ers against  temptation,  disease,  and  all  the  opposition  of 
evil.  It  has  for  its  second  part  a  Judean  ministry 
which  tells  how  he  took  up  the  cross  and  achieved  the 
redemption,  making  "  propitiation  for  our  sins,  and  not 
for  ours  only  but  also  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world." 
There  is  a  third  literary  type  of  the  Christian  canon, 
the  recorded  utterance  of  contemporary  "  prophecy,"  or 
(as  we  call  it)  "  apocalypse."  This  third  type  has  not 
the  polarity  of  the  other  two,  but  it  manifestly  develops 
that  factor  of  the  Supper  observance  which  is  repre- 
sented in  the  Gospels  by  the  saying :  "  Ye  shall  sit  on 
thrones,  judging  the  twelve  tribes  of  Israel."  These 
three :  Epistles,  the  utterance  of  Apostles ;  Gospels,  the 
utterance  of  evangelists  and  teachers ;  Apocalypse,  the 
utterance  of  "  prophets,"  form  the  material  of  our  study. 

Because  Christianity  did  not  come  into  the  chaotic 
religious  world  of  the  Empire  as  a  ready-made  system 


INTKODUCTOBY  11 

from  without,  impervious  to  the  feeling  and  thought  of 
the  time,  nor  as  a  book,  or  theology,  but  only  as  a  free 
and  germinant  idea,  capable  of  drawing  into  itself  and 
adapting  every  serviceable  element  from  its  environ- 
ment, we  should  expect  to  find,  and  do  find,  the  ebb  and 
flow  of  the  tides  of  religious  thought  leaving  their  mark 
in  the  structure  of  this  literature,  and  not  outside  alone. 
As  some  of  those  exquisite  flower-like  forms  of  ocean's 
bed  build  themselves  up  out  of  material  carried  on  the 
currents  that  sweep  in  and  out  through  their  pores,  so  the 
literature  of  Christianity's  formative  age  retains  within 
its  structure  watermarks  of  the  conflict  of  religious 
forces  pouring  now  from  the  Jewish,  now  from  the  Hel- 
lenistic world;  and  while  the  more  vital  consciousness 
subdues  and  assimilates  the  weaker,  yet  the  weaker  finds 
a  place  and  reappears,  though  in  transfigured  form. 
^National  religion  in  even  its  proudest  development,  the 
worship  of  the  genius  of  Rome,  disappeared  before  the 
new  universal  religion.  But  its  best  elements  were  not 
destroyed.  They  were  fulfilled  in  the  transfigured  doc- 
trine of  the  kingdom  of  God.  ISTature-worship,  in  its 
Hellenistic  adaptation  to  the  hope  of  immortality  by 
participation  in  the  divine  nature,  went  down  before  the 
gospel  of  the  risen  Christ.  But  the  Hellenistic  doctrines 
of  personal  immortality  had  their  resurrection.  In  con- 
flict with  them  the  crude  Jewish  eschatology  of  a  restora- 
tion of  all  things  in  a  kingdom  inherited  by  flesh  and 
blood  underwent  a  change  so  complete  as  to  leave  scarce 
a  trace  of  its  earlier  form.  Little  remains  of  it  in 
the  fourth  Gospel  beyond  the  assurance  that  departing 
we  shall  be  "  with  Christ."  The  doctrine  of  raising 
from  among  the  dead  (avao-rao-t?  ck  vcKpwv)  is  transformed 
into  a  doctrine  of  participation  in  the  eternal  life  that 
is  "  hid  in  God." 

It  is  the  purpose  of  this  introductory  lecture  to  clas- 
sify the  successive  types  of  New  Testament  literature 


12  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

in  the  well  known  and  generally  admitted  order  of  their 
appearance.  First  by  an  interval  of  decades  come  the 
great  Epistles  of  Paul,  continued  in  a  later  succession 
of  Deutero-Pauline  and  Catholic  Epistles.  The  latter 
are  attributed  to  Apostles  and  Brethren  of  the  Lord  who 
had  the  authority  of  Apostles,  and  in  substance  as  well 
as  form  are  largely  Pauline.  Contemporary  with  some 
of  the  later  Epistles  come  the  Synoptic  writings,  be- 
ginning with  Mark,  and  including  both  treatises  of 
Luke.  For  practical  purposes  we  group  with  these  the 
kindred  book  of  the  Revelation  of  John.  Later  still,  at 
the  very  close  of  the  first  century  or  beginning  of  the 
second,  come  the  so-called  Johannine  writings,  which 
consist  of  a  Gospel  and  three  brief  Epistles. 

It  is  important  to  observe  that  we  cannot  reckon  the 
Revelation  in  the  "  Johannine  "  group,  or  class ;  we 
should  reserve  the  term  "  Johannine "  to  this  book 
which  alone  of  the  five  canonized  at  Ephesus  bears  the 
name  of  "  John  "  in  its  text.  The  Ephesian  Gospel  and 
Epistles  while  not  much  later  in  date  than  the  Revela- 
tion are  at  the  widest  possible  remove  from  it  doctrinally, 
and  as  literature  belong  in  a  totally  different  class.  We 
should  also  note  that  of  the  three  groups  described  the 
first  and  third  (Epistles  and  Johannine  Writings)  are 
composed  exclusively  of  writings  which  are  Greek,  and 
never  were  anything  but  Greek;  whereas  the  second 
group  (Synoptics  and  Revelation)  is  almost  as  com- 
pletely Semitic  in  origin,  scarcely  any  part  save  the 
story  of  Paul  in  the  second  half  of  Acts  having  been 
originally  composed  in  Greek.  The  rest  seems  to  have 
been  translated  from  Aramaic  in  its  main  substance. 

The  middle  period  of  JSFew  Testament  literature  repre- 
sents, therefore,  an  Aramaic  enclave.  The  statement 
seems  simple  enough.  It  means  only  that  the  Synoptic 
writings  and  Revelation  arc  based  on  translations  from 
the  Aramaic,  and  in  this  carefully  chosen  expression 


INTRODUCTORY  13 

would  probably  be  admitted  by  all  pbilologians.  Con- 
sidered in  itself  alone  it  is  not  a  fact  of  great  importance ; 
for  we  may  accept  the  translation  as  in  general  quite  ade- 
quate. But  considered  as  a  symptom  of  the  origin  and 
nature  of  the  material  embodied  in  these  naturalized 
Greek  writings,  it  has  an  importance  which  entirely 
transcends  the  apprehension  of  the  ordinary  reader. 

Stated  in  other  terms  the  phenomenon  is  this:  prac- 
tically the  whole  literature  of  our  European,  Greek- 
speaking,  Pauline  Christianity,  in  those  vital  elements 
which  cover  the  life  and  teaching  of  Jesus,  and  the 
founding  and  extension  of  the  Church,  together  with  its 
entire  apocalyptic  eschatology,  is  a  foreign  substance 
relatively  to  its  literary  context.  It  is  a  rib  taken  out 
from  the  body  of  the  Aramaic-speaking  branch  of  the 
Church,  and  grafted  into  the  Pauline.  The  Palestinian 
mother-church  was  dispersed  in  the  formative  period  of 
the  New  Testament,  leaving  no  literature  of  its  own. 
What  survives  is  due  to  the  pious  care  of  the  Pauline 
churches,  which  incorporated  with  their  own  apostolic 
writings  such  of  the  Aramaic  material  as  could  be  made 
available.  This  material  was  foreign  in  language,  and 
to  some  extent  in  conception  also,  but  not  really  alien. 
Had  it  been  foreign  to  this  extent  the  adapted  material 
could  never  have  been  vitalized  at  all.  Unchristian  ma- 
terial, whether  Jewish  or  heathen,  would  never  have 
been  received;  or  if  taken  up  it  would  have  been 
promptly  ejected.  The  enclave  is  Christian,  but  retains 
something  of  its  Jewish  origin.  Apart  from  the  single 
book  of  prophecy,  ascribed  in  the  editorial  framework  to 
John,  this  Aramaic  material  is  distinctively,  and  in 
every  sense  of  the  word,  "  Petrine  " ;  since  not  only  the 
foundation  narrative  transmitted  from  Mark  to  the  later 
Synoptists  is  imiversally  understood  to  represent  the 
reminiscences  of  Peter,  but  the  subsequent  story  of  the 
founding  of  the  Church  is  centered  on  this  Apostle. 


14  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

But  why  did  the  Pauline  churches  take  up  this  Sem- 
itic material  'i  For  two  reasons.  First,  Paul  himself 
looked  back  to  and  rested  upon  this  Petrine  authority 
(I  Cor.  15:1-11);  and  after  Paul's  "departure"  his 
churches  had  no  other  recourse  against  the  unbridled 
speculations  of  Gnostic  heresy.  Second,  while  the  trans- 
lation probably  errs  if  at  all  rather  in  the  direction  of  too 
slavish  liter alness,  the  much  more  important  matter  of 
selection  was  entirely  in  the  hands  of  Greek  editors. 
And  unless  every  indication  both  of  ancient  tradition  and 
modern  inference  is  wrong,  these  Greek  editors  took  up 
only  what  was  most  congenial  to  the  Pauline  churches 
among  which  their  compilations  were  intended  to  cir- 
culate. In  Matthew  we  have  a  few  traces  of  material 
which  if  not  anti-Pauline  is  at  least  irreconcilable  with 
Paul's  teaching.  The  same  is  true  of  Acts.  But  ed- 
itors anxious  to  believe  that  all  Apostles  taught  precisely 
the  same  doctrine  found  a  harmonizing  sense  quite  as 
easily  as  moderns  find  it  in  the  Epistle  of  James.  Their 
catholicity  was  generously  inclusive. 

The  case  of  Mark  is  typical,  and  this  Gospel  became 
determinative  of  later  Synoptic  narrative.  There  is 
good  reason  to  accept  the  testimony  of  antiquity  that 
this  Petrine  foundation  stone  of  the  sayings  and  doings 
of  Jesus  was  compiled  under  the  direction  of  Mark.  At 
least  it  appeared  under  his  authority.  And  Mark,  as  we 
know,  was  a  follower  of  Paul.  Until  the  end  Mark  was 
with  Paul  at  Kome,  or  acting  for  him  from  Rome,  as  his 
trusted  representative.  Such  connection  as  this  lieuten- 
ant of  Paul  had  had  with  Peter  was  probably  only  a  mat- 
ter of  his  young  manhood,  at  least  a  score  of  years  before 
the  time  of  writing. 

It  is  true  that  Mark  appears  in  a  different  relation  in 
a  writing  knoAvn  to  us  as  the  First  Epistle  of  Peter. 
This  is  an  encyclical,  later  than  the  Gospel,  addressed 
from  Rome  to  the  Pauline  churches  of  Asia  Minor.     It 


INTRODUCTORY  15 

encourages  them  to  stand  fast  in  the  fiery  persecution 
they  are  called  upon  to  undergo  together  with  their 
brethren  throughout  the  world,  apparently  the  Domiti- 
anic  persecution  of  about  90  a.  d.  It  purports  to  speak 
for  Peter,  and  conveys  a  greeting  from  "  Mark "  as 
Peter's  (spiritual)  "  son,"  implying  a  second  association 
of  Mark  with  Peter  after  the  death  of  Paul.  I  need 
hardly  say  that  if  the  date  90  a.  d.  is  correct  the  assump- 
tion to  speak  for  Peter  is  a  literary  fiction.  The  device 
was  regarded  as  admissible  at  the  time,  and  perhaps 
at  first  w^as  fully  understood  as  the  mere  convention 
which  it  almost  certainly  is.  Few  scholars  to-day  would 
attempt  to  maintain  Petrine  authorship  in  any  real 
sense.  At  all  events  everything  about  First  Peter  save 
the  name  is  Pauline,  and  Pauline  only.  Hence  we  can 
use  its  mention  of  Mark  as  Peter's  "  son  "  only  as  wit- 
ness to  the  regard  which  was  accorded  to  the  evangelist 
at  the  place  of  composition  as  early  as  90  a.  d.  And  this 
is  of  no  small  importance.  For  we  learn  from  Acts  that 
Mark  really  had  been  associated  with  Peter  in  the  days 
before  he  accompanied  Paul  and  Barnabas  on  the  so- 
called  First  Missionary  Journey.  We  may  perhaps 
assume  also  that  he  came  down  with  Peter  from  Jeru- 
salem to  Antioch  after  having  left  Paul  and  Barnabas  at 
Perga.  That  was  about  the  year  47  or  48.  This 
early  association  with  Peter  might  well  account  for  his 
being  referred  to  in  the  Epistle  as  Peter's  spiritual 
"  son." 

The  data  of  Acts  will  also  account  for  Mark's  being 
called  an  "  interpreter"  (epfx-qvevrrj';)  of  Peter  in  a  very 
ancient  tradition  of  Palestinian  origin  which  spoke  of 
him  as  author  of  the  Gospel.  In  its  original  form  and 
sense  this  tradition  is  perfectly  credible.  Before  his 
journey  to  Cyprus  with  Barnabas  after  the  breach  with 
Paul  at  Antioch  Mark  may  very  well  have  been  associ- 
ated with  Peter.     But  there  is  not  a  word  in  the  tra- 


16  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

dition  itself  to  justify  the  idea  which  second  and  third 
century  writers  formed  by  combining  it  with  the  men- 
tion of  "  Babylon  "  in  I  Pt.  5  :  13.  Assuming  (as  they 
did)  that  Peter  himself  wrote  the  Epistle,  and  that 
"  Babylon  "  stands  for  Eome  (which  is  probably  true) 
they  inferred  that  after  having  been  Paul's  follower  to 
the  end  at  Rome  Mark  had  become  associated  for  a  sec- 
ond time  with  Peter,  this  Apostle  having  come  to  take 
Paul's  place  in  Rome.  Peter  was  thus  made  in  a  direct 
sense  responsible  for  the  Roman  Gospel ;  practically  its 
author.  If,  however,  we  place  his  relation  to  Mark 
before  Mark's  association  with  Paul,  as  we  probably 
should,  Peter's  connection  with  the  narrative  becomes 
much  more  remote. 

The  designation  of  Mark's  Gospel  the  "  Memoirs  of 
Peter  "  is  thus  seen  to  be  a  typical  second-century  exag- 
geration. The  Gospel  is  no  doubt  a  product  of  the 
Roman  church.  It  probably  does  represent  in  the  most 
primitive  form,  the  compilation  by  Mark  of  what  he 
could  gather,  or  remember,  of  the  preaching  of  Peter. 
Its  material  was  largely  documentary,  and  has  been 
translated  from  the  Aramaic.  But  it  is  certainly  not  a 
primary  Apostolic  record;  nor  did  the  oldest  form  of 
the  tradition  even  venture  to  call  it  such.  It  is  a  post- 
humous collection  of  Petrine  material  by  a  Paulinist  for 
Paulinists.  It  represents  the  practical  use  to  which 
primitive  Palestinian  material  could  be  put  by  a  great 
Greek-speaking,  Gentile  church,  thoroughly  Pauline  in 
all  its  anti-Jewish  tendencies,  a  decade  or  so  after  both 
Peter  and  Paul  were  dead. 

If  such  be  the  case  with  the  Gospel  of  Mark  it  is 
hardly  needful  to  point  out  that  the  still  later,  probably 
Antiochian  work  Luke- Acts,  and  the  Palestinian  Gos- 
pel to  which  tradition  early  attached  the  name  of  "  Mat- 
thew "  have  a  similar  history  of  adaptation.  Both  of 
these  depend  largely  on  Mark.     Both  are  Greek  com- 


INTEODUCTOKT  17 

positions,  merely  employing  Aramaic  material,  and  the 
greater  part  even  of  this  material  was,  like  Mark,  already 
in  translation  before  the  composition  of  the  present 
Gospels.  These,  therefore,  can  no  more  than  Mark 
aspire  to  be  considered  primary  apostolic  documents ;  but 
the  later  two  go  far  beyond  Mark  in  their  exaltation  of 
Peter.  All  three  embody  Palestinian  material,  some  of 
it  possibly  as  old  as  the  letters  of  Paul.  With  it  is 
much  more  which  was  Aramaic,  perhaps  Palestinian,  but 
by  no  means  so  ancient. 

The  point  of  view  of  the  Antiochian,  and  especially 
of  the  Palestinian  Gospel  is,  as  we  should  expect,  much 
less  in  harmony  with  the  ideas  of  Paul  than  the  Roman. 
In  particular  they  go  very  much  further  than  Mark  in 
taking  up  discourses  of  Jesus  from  an  ancient  source,  of 
unknown  origin.  This  is  what  critics  designate  the 
Second  Source,  reconstructing  it  from  the  "  double-tra- 
dition "  material  of  Matthew  and  Luke.  It  presented 
Jesus'  ministry  largely  as  that  of  a  teacher,  one  who 
saves  men  principally  by  indoctrination  in  the  "  wisdom 
that  cometh  from  above."  Probably  the  origin  of  both 
Matthew  and  Luke  is  largely  due  to  the  need  indepen- 
dently felt  in  different  quarters  for  enriching  the 
Petrine  tradition  with  this  mass  of  teaching  material. 

Besides  the  four  narrative  books  our  Aramaic  enclave 
includes  also  a  fifth,  of  different  type.  This  is  the 
Palestinian  "  book  of  prophecy  "  which  an  Ephesian 
editor  of  about  93  a.  d.  gives  out  under  cover  of  seven 
"  letters  of  the  Spirit "  to  the  seven  churches  of  Asia, 
attributing  the  incorporated  visions  to  the  martyred 
Apostle  John,  who  is  vaguely  located  on  the  Isle  of 
Patmos.  This  work  also  is  demonstrably  an  adapta- 
tion of  Aramaic  material.  It  seems  to  come  largely 
from  the  period  of  Jerusalem's  death-struggle  with 
Rome  a  quarter-century  before  the  time  of  republication 
at  Ephesus.     The  churches  addressed  in  the  present 


18  JESITS    AXD    PAUL 

work  are  the  Greek  churches  of  the  Ionic  coast.  The 
messages  of  the  JSpirit  in  the  prefatory  letters  show 
clearly  that  their  problems  and  dangers  are  those  of 
the  Pauline  churches  at  this  time  and  in  this  region. 
Their  troubles  are  not  with  the  sword  of  Rome,  but  with 
"  Nicolaitans,"  "  Balaamites,"  and  others  who  "  teach 
my  servants  to  commit  fornication  and  to  eat  things 
sacrificed  to  idols."  Name  and  description  alike  recall 
the  three  chapters  devoted  by  Paul  to  this  subject  in 
I  Cor.  8-10.  The  Palestinian  churches  to  which  the 
visions  of  the  "  prophecy  "  thus  introduced  would  seem 
to  have  been  originally  addressed  had  quite  other  dif- 
ficulties. ISTevertheless  in  the  time  of  storm  and  stress 
of  Domitian,  the  second  ISTero,  the  Pauline  "  churches 
of  Asia  "  threatened  by  Satan  as  a  roaring  lion  in  perse- 
cution without,  and  as  a  tempting  serpent  by  heresy 
within,  might  well  turn  with  eagerness  to  the  consola- 
tions and  encouragements  of  Palestinian  "  apocalypse," 
translating  and  circulating  among  themselves  the  visions 
which  had  done  service  in  Palestine  a  generation  be- 
fore. For  in  the  last  year  of  his  reign  Nero  had  brought 
upon  Jerusalem  the  abomination  of  desolation  spoken 
of  by  Daniel  the  prophet. 

Thus  the  great  Aramaic  enclave  of  our  Greek  New 
Testament,  the  enclave  consisting  of  the  four  Synoptic 
writings  and  Revelation,  covers  the  period  which  Clem- 
ent of  Alexandria  significantly  designates  as  "  post- 
apostolic."  It  begins  in  62  a.  d.  with  the  martyrdom 
of  James  in  Jerusalem  along  with  "  others."  These 
"  others  "  may  have  included  John  the  brother  of  the 
other  James,  who  had  been  martyred  in  41 ;  for  Papias 
records  that  the  two  sons  of  Zebedee  were  "  killed  by 
the  -Tews."  The  martyrdom  of  Paul  at  Rome  had  fol- 
lowed that  of  James  the  Lord's  brother  only  a  year  or 
two  later,  and  Peter's  had  taken  place  at  about  the  same 


INTRODUCTORY  19 

date.  Clement  may  well  say,  therefore,  that  the  period 
of  teaching  of  the  Apostles  closes  with  the  death  of  Paul 
under  I^ero/  The  enclave  is  later.  Its  adoption  by 
the  Greek  churches  represents  in  a  sense  a  reaction  from 
the  free  gospel  of  Pauline  missionary  evangelism.  It 
is  a  reaction  perfectly  unavoidable,  and  on  the  whole 
salutary,  toward  the  standpoint  of  the  so-called  Pillar- 
apostles.  It  came  to  an  end,  so  far  as  incorporations  in 
our  canon  are  concerned,  not  far  from  the  close  of  the 
first  century,  and  was  followed,  as  one  might  expect,  by 
a  new  surge  of  Pauline  re-interpretation  of  the  gospel 
message  on  a  higher  scale,  including  the  values  and  em- 
ploying the  forms  of  both  elements.  This  resurge  of 
Paulinism  is  what  we  have  learned  to  call  the  Johan- 
nine  literature,  meaning  by  it  not  the  writing  which 
really  names  the  Apostle  John  as  its  author,  the  Revela- 
tion, to  which  I  referred  above,  but  the  four  anonymous 
Ephesian  writings  of  the  same  locality  and  but  slightly 
later  date,  which  came  to  be  attributed  traditionally  to 
the  same  author.  Ephesus  had  been  the  great  headquar- 
ters of  Paul's  mission  field.  Here  he  worked  longest, 
and  had  most  occasion  to  give  his  system  of  thought  its 
highest  and  most  philosophic  interpretation.  It  was 
therefore  the  predestined  place  of  origin  and  center  of 
dissemination  for  that  "  spiritual  Gospel,"  as  the  Fath- 
ers learned  to  call  it,  which  became  the  foundation  of 
all  the  later  theologies,  rounding  out  the  full  cycle  of 
the  Pauline  message.  ISTevertheless  neither  the  thought 
of  Paul,  nor  that  of  his  great  interpreter  at  Ephesus, 
found  easy  acceptance.  It  is  full  fifty  years  before  any 
considerable  effect  of  the  "  Johannine  "  type  of  teaching 
can  be  traced  in  Christian  literature,  eighty  before  any 
one  quotes  the  Gospel  by  name  as  the  work  of  an  Apostle, 
and  almost  a  century  before  it  can  claim  a  position  of 
nearly  undisputed  authority  alongside  its  three  predeces- 
sors. 

1  Strom.  VII,  17  (106  f.). 


20  JESUS   AND   PAUL 


2.  The  Reflected  Movement  of  Religious  Life 

As  we  bring  our  preliminary  survey  of  the  material 
to  a  close  we  are  reminded  that  the  conclusions  of  criti- 
cism are  under  challenge  to  prove  not  only  their  rational 
grounds,  but  their  practical  availability.  Bible  read- 
ers demand  that  criticism  shall  be  "  constructive,"  mean- 
ing thereby  that  it  shall  make  the  Scriptures  at  least 
as  serviceable  as  before  to  the  religious  life. 

Paradoxical  as  it  may  sound,  I  do  not  hesitate  to 
name  the  Church-historian  Ferdinand  Christian  Baur  as 
the  founder  of  "  constructive  "  criticism.  Before  his 
time  criticism  had  been  predominantly  negative  and 
destructive.  Confronted  by  a  literature  canonized  by 
the  post-apostolic  Church  because  of  its  religious  values 
it  had  indulged  in  sporadic  bursts  of  rebellion  against 
the  tyranny  of  ecclesiastical  tradition.  It  was  battling 
for  the  bare  "  right  to  investigate  the  canon,"  and  until 
this  was  conceded  it  could  not  "  construct."  Baur  gave 
it  a  definite  and  comprehensive  plan  of  campaign,  with 
clearly  conceived  objectives.  In  the  historian's  view 
the  critic  had  a  larger  task  than  mere  disproof  of  a  tra- 
dition largely  based  on  theological  dogma  and  handed 
down  as  of  authority  by  divine  right.  He  was  called 
upon  to  give  a  better  explanation  than  the  traditional  of 
the  literature  in  question,  to  account  adequately  for  its 
origin  and  effect,  above  all  to  explain  its  relation  to  the 
new  forces  of  religious  life  which  produced  Christianity 
as  we  know  it  at  the  close  of  the  second  century,  a  de- 
veloped, systematized,  unified  world-religion.  Is  not 
such  criticism  constructive  ? 

Men  think  of  Baur  and  the  Tiibingen  School  as  de- 
structive critics,  because  they  went  beyond  all  who  had 
preceded  them  (and  indeed  beyond  the  next  generation 
of  their  own  followers)  in  sweeping  the  ground  clear  of 
disputable  wi'itings.     Nothing  was  to  remain  save  the 


INTRODUCTORY  21 

four  major  Epistles  of  Paul,  whose  date  could  be  approx- 
imately known,  and  whcjse  authenticity  had  never  been 
called  in  question.  Baur  indeed  believed  that  it  never 
could  be.  He  could  not  anticipate  the  eccentricities  of 
a  little  group  of  hjper-critics  in  our  own  time,  any  more 
than  his  contemporaries  could  foresee  the  antics  of  our 
futurists  in  music,  painting,  or  sculpture.  Baur  him- 
seK  in  rejecting  such  writings  as  First  Thessalonians, 
Philippians  and  Philemon  went  beyond  all  reasonable 
requirement  of  limitation  to  admitted  data.  But  it 
was  in  order  that  he  might  build,  like  a  true  historian, 
on  early  documents,  clearly  authenticated,  rather  than 
on  later  and  dependent,  of  unknown  authorship  and  in- 
determinable origin.^ 

Baur  rendered  one  great  service  by  his  insistence  on 
discrimination  in  the  historical  valuation  of  the  docu- 
ments. He  rendered  another,  still  greater,  by  insisting 
on  the  relation  between  the  literature,  and  the  life  from 
which  it  grew  and  to  which  it  was  intended  to  minister. 
To  place  the  writings  in  their  true  environment,  as 
products  of  their  own  time  and  contributory  forces  in  its 
movement,  is  the  prime  condition  of  any  interpretation 
deserving  to  be  called  historical.  And  if  our  interpre- 
tation is  not  historical  it  is  futile.  It  may  display  any 
amount  of  wisdom  from  our  own  minds,  but  it  certainly 
cannot  any  longer  claim  to  give  that  of  the  biblical 
writers. 

As  a  historical  critic,  bent  on  bringing  the  litera- 
ture of  the  Church  into  mutually  explanatory  relations 

8  It  is  curious  that  the  author  of  the  slogan  "  Back  to  tradi- 
tion "  should  make  his  "  Contributions  to  New  Testament  Criti- 
cism "  start  from  the  narrative  writings  attributed  to  Luke,  and 
having  established  the  date  and  authenticity  of  these  to  his  own 
satisfaction,  make  them  the  standard  to  which  the  Pauline  repre- 
sentation is  to  be  adjusted.  However  firm  the  foundation  thus 
laid  down  in  the  eyes  of  its  constructor,  there  will  probably  con- 
tinue to  be  a  certain  number,  even  in  Germany,  who  will  consider 
the  method  of  Baur  on  this  point  the  more  likely  to  yield  trust- 
worthy results. 


22  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

with  the  development  of  its  life  and  institutions,  Baur 
could  hardly  fail  to  seize  upon  the  same  conspicuous 
point  of  departure  as  Marcion,  the  great  Gnostic  Paul- 
inist  of  the  first  half  of  the  second  century.  The  key 
to  all  was  Paul's  story  of  his  resistance  to  Peter. 

Marcion  was  an  anti-Semite.  Born  and  brought  up 
in  the  great  Pauline  mission-field  of  Asia  Minor  he 
conceived  Christianity  as  might  have  been  expected 
from  a  typical  Greek.  Paul  alone,  said  Marcion,  un- 
derstood Jesus.  The  "  Pillar-Apostles  "  at  Jerusalem 
had  perverted  the  sense  of  his  gospel.  Jesus  himself 
was  not  so  much  a  Jew  as  a  divine  theophany  which 
had  occurred  in  Judaea,  intended  to  reveal  to  the  mis- 
guided Jews  that  the  divinity  Moses  had  taught  them 
to  worship  was  a  mere  demiurge,  an  inferior  being 
ignorant  of  the  tnie  God,  the  "  Father  in  heaven  "  of 
Jesus.  Jehovah  was  a  god  of  justice,  severe  and  unre- 
lenting in  the  punishment  inflicted  for  disobedience  to 
the  laws  he  had  imposed  on  his  creation.  But  the 
Father  in  heaven  was  a  God  of  goodness,  loving-kind- 
ness, grace.  Through  favor  of  his  manifested  Son, 
Jesus,  human  souls  could  escape  the  wrath  of  Jehovah, 
and  attain  to  the  immortality  of  their  Redeemer.  In 
short  Judaism  and  Christianity  were  made  two  antag- 
onistic religions. 

Marcion  naturally  excluded  the  Old  Testament  from 
use  by  his  churches,  and  substituted  a  canon  of  his  own. 
This,  the  first  Christian  Canon,  contained  the  Paulino 
Epistles  minus  the  three  Pastorals,  plus  an  expurgated 
version  of  the  Gospel  of  Luke.  Marcion  had  removed 
from  this  Gospel  what  he  regarded  as  the  interpolations 
of  the  Pillar-Apostles,  including  all  references  to  the 
Old  Testament.  It  began :  "In  the  fifteenth  year  of 
Tiberius  Caesar  Jesus  came  down  into  Capernaum,  a  city 
of  Galilee,  and  taught  in  their  synagogue."  His  col- 
lection of  the  Pauline  Epistles,  likewise  expurgated, 


INTRODUCTORY  23 

began  with  Galatians  and  its  account  of  how  Paul 
had  at  first  preached  the  gospel  divinely  committed  to 
him  without  hindrance  from  the  older  Apostles,  but  later 
found  obstacles  being  thrown  in  his  way  by  Judaizers, 
until  he  was  obliged  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem  and  protest,  in 
order  that  the  truth  of  the  gospel  might  remain  unto 
the  Gentiles.  Finally,  at  Antioch,  he  was  compelled 
even  to  withstand  Peter  to  his  face  because  of  his  cow- 
ardice and  "  hypocrisy "  in  face  of  emissaries  from 
James  and  the  Jewish  Christians  in  Jerusalem.  Here 
was  Paulinism  and  Gentile  Christianity  with  a  ven- 
geance. And  it  had  no  small  acceptance  in  the  Greek- 
speaking  Christian  world.  It  has  been  credibly  esti- 
mated that  Christianity  lost  one-half  its  following  to 
Marcion  and  other  Gnostic  heretics  bent  on  divorcing  it 
from  its  Jewish  affiliations  and  making  it  over  in  the 
true  likeness  of  a  Hellenistic  mystery-cult  of  personal 
redemption. 

At  the  other  extreme  from  Marcion  stood,  at  the  same 
period,  the  Jewish-Christian  sect  of  Ebionites,  anathe- 
matizing Paul  as  a  renegade  from  the  Law  and  a 
traitor  to  the  true  gospel  of  Jesus.  Salvation  was  of 
course  free  to  all,  but  on  condition  of  becoming  what 
Jesus  had  been,  a  circumcised  Jew.  Down  to  the  fifth 
century,  in  Ephiphanius'  time,  the  Ebionites  were  still 
claiming,  as  they  had  in  Paul's  day  at  Corinth,  to  be  "  of 
Christ,"  saying  "  Christ  was  circumcised,  therefore  be 
thou  circumcised.  Christ  kept  the  feasts,  therefore  do 
thou  keep  the  feasts."  ^ 

Extremists  of  both  types,  Jewish  and  Greek,  were 

inevitably  excluded  in  the  long  run  from  the  great  mass 

of  the  Church  in  its  forward  movement.     Thrown  off  as 

heretics  they  gTavitated  for  a  time  in  a  separate  orbit,  to 

be  lost  ere  long  in  that  blackness  of  darkness  which  Jude 

9  Epiphanius,  Panar.  xxviii.     See  Bacon,  "  The  Christ  party  in 
Corinth."     Expos.  VIII,  47  (Nov.,  1914). 


24  JESUS   AND   PAUL. 

assures  his  readers  is  reserved  for  such  wandering  stars. 
The  main  mass  recovered  its  equilibrium  and  kept  on  a 
middle  course.  Irenaeus,  at  the  close  of  the  second 
century,  represented  this  final  equilibrium.  His  very 
name  indicates,  as  Eusebius  reminds  us,  his  predestined 
function  of  "  peacemaker  "  among  the  parties  inside  the 
Church,  intolerant  opponent  as  he  is  of  all  outside. 
Christianity  had  by  this  time  balanced  accounts  with 
claimants  from  Judaism  and  the  Gentile  world  alike. 
Rome  had  taken  the  place  of  Ephesus  as  spiritual  heir  of 
East  and  West.  It  regarded  itself  as  trustee  of  both 
Peter  and  Paul,  supreme  arbiter  of  the  faith  since  the 
dispersion  in  135  of  the  Church  of  the  Apostles,  elders, 
and  kindred  of  the  Lord  in  Jerusalem.  The  remaining 
history  of  the  new  religion  is  a  process  of  consolidation 
and  development  from  within.  Such  was  the  broader 
nexus  of  historical  development  within  which  Baur 
sought  an  explanatory  background  for  the  writings  of 
the  New  Testament. 

As  a  historical  critic  Baur  was  bent  on  bringing  the 
literature  of  the  growing  religion  into  proper  relation  to 
the  movement  of  its  life,  and  thus  exhibiting  its  true 
significance  and  values.  In  view  of  the  outstanding 
facts  as  just  outlined,  what  could  be  more  natural  than 
to  say :  This  literature  is  a  product  of  the  nascent  faith 
in  the  period  of  its  emergence  from  Jewish  particular- 
ism into  its  ultimate  form  of  universalism.  Those  who, 
like  Paul,  perceived  its  broader  destiny  would  inevitably 
encounter  opposition  at  the  hands  of  fellow-Christians 
less  able  to  appreciate  its  larger  implications,  or  more 
conservatively  inclined;  and  from  this  opposition  would 
result  (unless  the  two  were  mutually  destructive)  a 
higher  unity.  The  adaptable  elements  on  both  sides 
would  be  combined  in  the  most  workable  and  comprehen- 
sive common  interpretation.  This  was  Baur's  scheme  of 
the  literary  development.     Prom  the  point  of  view  of 


INTRODUCTOBT  26 

mechanics  it  might  be  called  a  theory  of  the  resultant 
force,  an  invariable  outcome  of  the  opposition  of  two 
bodies  moving  toward  one  another,  but  not  in  exactly  the 
same  line,  or  if  so,  not  with  exactly  balanced  power.  In 
the  Hegelian  philosophy  of  history,  which  is  said  to  have 
influenced  Baur,  it  is  called  the  theory  of  thesis,  anti- 
thesis and  synthesis. 

It  would  be  superfluous  for  me  to  repeat  the  common 
remark  how  little  now  remains  of  Baur's  application  of 
his  famous  theory  to  New  Testament  literature.  No 
one,  of  course,  denies  a  development  of  Christianity  in 
its  process  of  self-emancipation  from  the  particularism 
of  the  older  Apostles  to  the  universalism  of  Paul.  The 
struggle  was  real,  but  the  Tiibingen  critics  extended  it 
too  far  down  in  time.  They  misunderstood  its  com- 
plexity, they  misinterpreted  the  writings  in  their  efforts 
to  discover  the  particular  "  tendency  "  which  should  de- 
termine their  place  in  it.  Mark  may  in  a  sense  be 
Petro-Pauline,  but  certainly  not  in  Baur's  sense ;  and 
it  is  not  the  latest,  but  the  earliest  of  the  Synoptic  writ- 
ings. Revelation  is  not  the  earliest  book  of  the  New 
Testament.  In  its  present  form  it  is  one  of  the  latest, 
and  far  from  anti-Pauline.  The  Johannine  literature 
may  indeed  represent  that  "  higher  synthesis  "  of  which 
Baur  wrote,  but  the  date  he  gave  it  was  two  full  genera- 
tions too  late.  All  this  must  be  admitted.  But  the  ad- 
mission need  detract  but  little  from  Baur's  just  claim  to 
be  the  foimder  of  constructive  criticism;  for  he  had 
taught  all  genuine  students  of  the  New  Testament  that 
the  literature  is  but  the  mask  of  the  enlarging  life. 

We  may  be  pardoned,  then,  a  moment's  digression  to 
the  criticism  of  a  hundred  years  ago.  Our  subject  of 
study  is  a  kind  of  collective  psychology  of  religion  in 
historical  manifestation.  Baur  has  taught  us  fearlessly 
to  apply  to  its  material  the  methods  of  historico-critical 
analysis,  and  to  apply  them  with  a  definite  purpose  in 


26  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

view ;  the  purpose  of  tracing  the  movement  of  the  great- 
est spiritual  impulse  ever  imparted  to  the  human  race. 
Larger  light  is  available  now  than  in  Baur's  time  on 
the  conditions  and  movements  of  religious  thought,  both 
Jewish  and  Hellenistic,  in  the  Empire.  It  should  en- 
able us  to  make  better  application  than  he  made  of  a 
principle  which,  if  stated  in  somewhat  different  terms 
from  Baur's,  remains  profoundly  true.  It  oifers,  as  I 
believe,  a  valid  coordinating  scheme  to  the  critic.  The 
statement  of  that  principle  I  must  leave  to  a  subsequent 
occasion.  You  have  already  divined  that  it  concerns  the 
impulse  of  religious  life  which  assumes  so  different  a 
shape  in  its  transition  from  Jesus  to  Paul.  Meantime 
let  me  sum  up.  The  successive  phases  of  the  literature 
as  it  reaches  us  are  three :  the  literature  of  the  Apostle ; 
the  literature  of  the  teacher,  and  of  the  prophet;  the 
literature  of  the  theologian.  But  as  the  Ephesian  evan- 
gelist teaches  us,  the  manifested  life  is  one:  even  that 
wliich  was  from  the  beginning  with  the  Father.  He 
that  sees  it  bears  witness,  that  all  men  may  share  his  fel- 
lowship with  the  Father,  and  with  His  Son,  Jesus 
Christ.  A  true  answer  to  this  Johannine  utterance  is 
made  by  the  great  Jewish  philosopher  of  post-reforma- 
tion times.  "  It  is  not  absolutely  necessary,"  says 
Spinoza,  "  to  know  Christ  after  the  flesh,  but  we  must 
think  veiy  differently  of  that  eternal  Son  of  God,  I 
mean  the  eternal  Wisdom  of  God,  which  has  mani- 
fested itself  in  all  things,  and  chiefly  in  the  human  mind, 
and  most  of  all  in  Jesus  Christ."  ^^ 
10  Spinoza,  Op.  i,  510,  Ep.  to  Oldenburg. 


LECTURE  II 

BEGINNINGS   AND   GROWTH   OF   THE    GOSPEL,   OF 
RECONCILIATION 

1.  Mo'vement  of  Israel's  Religious  Development  from 
Nationalism  to   Universalism 

Erom  the  view-point  of  the  historian  of  religion  the 
Christian  era  should  begin  with  the  25th  of  December, 
165  B.  c.  On  that  date  the  worship  of  Jehovah  was 
restored  in  the  temple  at  Jerusalem  purified  from 
heathen  defilement,  and  God  began  to  make  all  things 
new.  The  heroic  sons  of  Mattathias  who  had  won  back 
both  religious  freedom  and  national  independence 
founded  a  native  dynasty  of  priest  kings,  and  with  the 
beginning  of  the  new  epoch  religion  too  advanced  with 
mighty  strides.  Prophecy  took  on  the  new  form  of 
apocalypse.  Its  goal  was  no  longer  a  kingdom  of  this 
world  but  a  cosmic  deliverance.  Its  conflict  was  no 
longer  against  flesh  and  blood,  but  against  principali- 
ties, powers,  world-rulers  of  darkness  in  heavenly 
places.  Israel's  enemy  was  no  longer  the  alien  op- 
pressor, but  the  invisible  foes  of  humanity,  the  powers 
of  Sin  and  Death. 

Next  to  apocalyptic  prophecy  among  the  factors  of 
the  new  religious  age  stands  legalism.  It  had  been  an 
uprising  of  the  people  which  saved  the  religion  of  Je- 
hovah when  the  priesthood  proved  largely  faithless.  It 
was  now  the  people's  place  of  worship,  the  Synagogue, 
an  institution  unknown  to  the  Law,  which  began  rap- 
idly to  eclipse  the  prescribed  and  oflicial  worship  of 

27 


28  JESUS   AND   PAUL 

the  temple  in  the  real  religious  life  of  the  nation. 
And  with  the  Synagogue  came  the  scribe,  the  interpre- 
ter of  Scripture,  and  the  Pharisee,  its  faithful  devotee, 
who  seeks  to  attain  the  national  hope  bj  faith  and 
obedience.  The  later  Maccabees  became  selfish  and 
degenerate  time-servers.  The  Pharisees  proved  by 
hundreds  of  martyrdoms  the  sincerity  of  their  devo- 
tion to  the  ideals  advanced  during  the  war  of  liberation : 
Not  conquest,  but  freedom  to  worship  God. 

The  book-religion  of  scribe  and  Pharisee  strains 
every  nerve  to  attain  for  the  nation  reconciliation  of 
Jehovah's  favor.  For  the  individual  it  seeks  "  a  share 
in  the  world  to  come,"  that  "  resurrection  of  the  just " 
which  now  for  the  first  time  began  to  play  a  part,  soon 
to  become  the  controlling  part  in  Jewish  piety.  This 
was  the  contribution  of  apocalypse. 

But  side  by  side  with  apocalypse  and  legalism  there 
comes  into  view  a  third  development  of  other  import. 
This  same  new  age  of  Judaism  sees  the  rise  and  cul- 
mination of  the  Wisdom  literature,  re-interpreting  the 
religion  of  Jehovah  in  terms  of  ethics  and  philosophy. 
This  type  of  thought  flourished  chiefly  in  Alexandria, 
and  culminated  in  the  Logos-doctrine  of  Philo,  the 
earlier  contemporary  of  Jesus.  A  Wisdom  fragment 
preserved  in  the  Gospels  presents  these  three  great 
agents  of  Jehovah's  new-creative  Spirit  as  "  prophets, 
wise  men,  and  scribes." 

Thus  while  Gentile  religions  crumbled,  or  turned 
back  toward  nature-worship,  Judaism  advanced; 
though  showing  itself  anything  but  impervious  to  the 
currents  of  thought  and  life  around  it.  Outward  ex- 
pansion went  hand  in  hand  with  inward  renewal.  It 
was  growth  promoted  not  only  under  pressure  of  ad- 
verse circumstance,  but  also  under  stimulus  of  contem- 
porary Gentile  thought. 

However  contrary  to  our  inherited  ideas,  evidence  is 


THE    GOSPEL   OF   RECONCILIATION  29 

not  lacking  of  rapid  evolution  even  in  that  supreme  ex- 
pression of  Israel's  religious  genius  of  which  eTesus  be- 
came the  leader  and  representative.  Not  only  was 
there  a  great  advance  from  the  baptism  of  John  to  the 
preaching  of  Jesus,  the  Gospels  themselves,  little  as 
they  are  disposed  to  admit  a  process  of  development,  do 
not  conceal  the  fact  that  Jesus  himself  increased  in 
wisdom  as  in  stature,  and  that  his  faith  was  both 
broadened  and  deepened  by  the  things  which  he  ex- 
perienced and  suffered.  The  humble,  expectant  faith 
of  a  heathen  woman  could  open  to  him  new  vistas  of  the 
comprehensiveness  of  his  calling,  as  he  sought  refuge 
from  the  hostility  of  his  own  people  in  the  coasts  of 
Tyre  and  Sidon.  And  this  was  not  the  only  incident 
of  Gentile  faith  to  lead  him  to  broader  views.  Con- 
trasts such  as  that  of  the  believing  centurion  with 
Jewish  unbelief  could  make  him  warn  the  Galilean 
cities  that  Tyre  and  Sidon,  Nineveh  and  Sodom,  would 
meet  a  better  fate  than  they  in  the  judgment.  So  he 
said  to  Jerusalem  also :  "  The  kingdom  of  God  shall 
be  taken  away  from  you  and  given  to  a  nation  bringing 
forth  the  fruits  thereof." 

If  rejection  in  Galilee  led  Jesus  to  a  broader  view 
of  his  mission,  the  more  disastrous  rejection  in  Jeru- 
salem led  to  a  deeper  and  higher.  When  he  set  his  face 
steadfastly  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem,  accompanied  by  a 
mere  handful  out  of  the  great  multitudes  that  had  eaten 
of  the  loaves  and  then  withdrawn,  it  was  with  a  clear 
premonition  of  his  fate.  He  could  not  but  foresee 
that  if  he  had  failed  to  carry  with  him  the  adherents  of 
the  Synagogue  in  Galilee,  his  attempt  to  take  the  temple 
out  of  the  hands  of  the  hierocracy,  and  make  it  a  house 
of  prayer  for  all  the  people,  might  have  no  better  re- 
sult. And  the  penalty  of  failure  would  be  death.  He 
spoke  plainly  to  those  whom  he  invited  to  join  with 
him  in  this  forlorn  hope,  of  what  was  involved  in  the 


30  JESUS    AK^D    PAUL 

issue.  If  he  carried  the  people  with  him  it  meant  that 
judgment  would  begin  at  the  house  of  God.  The  step 
would  have  been  taken  which  according  to  Malachi  was 
the  supreme  act  of  national  purification  in  preparation 
for  Jehovah's  coming.  The  King's  palace  would  be 
purged  and  ready  for  His  dwelling  among  a  repentant 
and  loyal  people.  If  he  did  not,  his  cause  would  not 
survive  another  Passover.^ 

There  is  nothing  improbable  in  the  representation  of 
the  Gospels  that  it  was  at  the  time  when  Jesus  laid 
before  the  Twelve  his  purpose  to  carry  the  campaign  for 
the  reign  of  God  to  the  central  sanctuary  that  the  ques- 
tion was  first  raised  as  to  the  real  nature  of  his  mis- 
sion. He  certainly  had  neither  the  desire  nor  the  in- 
tention to  be  a  political  Messiah.  Of  that  the  story 
of  Peter's  Rebuke  leaves  no  doubt.  On  the  other 
hand  direct  action  such  as  he  now^  proposed  meant  the 
assumption  of  national  leadership  in  a  sense  beyond 
that  of  mere  prophet  and  teacher.  And  failure,  such 
as  was  only  too  probable,  meant  that  the  kingdom,  if 
realized  at  all,  must  come  by  the  intervention  of  God. 
The  alternative  is  expressed  in  the  titles  Son  of  David 
—  Son  of  Man.  Critics  who  reject  the  views  of  the 
fashionable     "  eschatological     school "     consider     that 

1  The  driving  out  of  the  traders  from  the  temple  was  a  coup 
d'etat,  the  carefully  planned  climax  of  Jesus'  career,  by  which  he 
at  once  symbolized  the  significance  of  his  mission  and  staked  his 
all  upon  the  event.  The  significance  then  attaching  to  the  act 
will  be  apparent  from  a  Jewish  interpretation  in  jiarable  of  the 
Isaian  figure  of  Israel  as  the  forsaken  wife.  (Ex.  Rahba,  c.  51.) 
It  is  a  comment  on  the  name  "  tent  of  witness  "  applied  in  Exodus 
to  the  Tabernacle:  "A  king  was  angry  witli  liis  wife  and  for- 
sook her.  The  neighbors  declared,  '  He  will  not  return.'  Then  the 
king  sent  word  to  her  (Mai.  1:0-14;  3:  1-12):  'Cleanse  my 
palace,  and  on  such  and  sucli  a  day  I  will  return  to  thee.'  He 
came  and  was  reconciled  to  her.  Therefore  is  the  sanctuary  called 
the  '  tent  of  witness.'  It  is  a  witness  to  the  Gentiles  that  God  is 
no  longer  wroth."  To  Jesus  the  restoration  of  his  Father's  house 
as  "  a  house  of  prayer  "  was  a  token  of  national  repentance  and 
divine  "  reconciliation." 


THE    GOSPEL    OF    KECONCILIATION  31 

Jesus  was  no  more  carried  oil"  his  feet  by  apocalyptic 
messianism  than  by  the  nationalism  of  the  Zealots.  He 
used  the  term  Son  of  Man,  as  he  used  that  of  "  the 
Christ "  with  his  own  reserves.  But  he  could  scarcely 
avoid  using  it  on  such  an  occasion  as  this  at  Csesarea 
Philippi. 

The  author  of  Hebrews  tells  us  that  Jesus  "  learned 
by  the  things  that  he  suffered."  For  my  own  part  I 
cannot  see  how  it  is  possible  to  deny  the  evidences  of 
development  in  his  message  as  the  Synoptists  report  it. 
There  is  an  unceasing  process  of  action  and  reaction 
between  the  urge  of  the  splendid  ideal,  and  the  pressure 
of  stern  reality.  He  finds  victory  in  defeat.  Disap- 
pointment in  his  case  only  lends  wings  to  faith,  so  that 
the  unbelief  of  Galilee  gives  but  the  greater  scope  and 
the  deeper  intensity  to  his  self-dedication.  The  catas- 
trophe in  Jerusalem  was  more  disastrous.  It  left  him 
not  only  deserted  by  every  follower,  but  betrayed  to  a 
felon's  death.  Yet  faith  was  victorious.  iSTot,  how- 
ever, by  following  his  own  way,  but  the  way  of  his 
Father's  leading.  The  Eschatological  school  of  inter- 
preters, who  make  apocalypse  the  one  key  to  all  prob- 
lems of  Jesus'  career,  are  very  likely  right  in  maintain- 
ing that  Jesus  went  up  to  Jerusalem  in  the  conviction 
that  if  he  did  not  carry  Israel  with  him  God  himself 
would  visibly  intervene.  If  so,  that  was  one  of  the 
phases  of  Jesus'  faith  that  had  to  be  transcended. 
And  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  it  was  tran- 
scended; not  only  later,  by  the  faith  of  a  Church  disap- 
pointed in  its  cruder  expectations,  but  by  the  faith  of 
Jesus  himself.  Of  this  we  have  more  than  one  intima- 
tion in  the  so-called  Second  Source.  At  present  I  will 
refer  to  one  only. 

The  demand  of  a  sign  from  heaven  is  addressed  to 
Jesus  by  certain  scribes  who  had  come  down  from  Je- 
rusalem to  destrov  his  work  in  Galilee  and  drive  him 


32  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

into  exile.  He  meets  it  with  the  declaration,  "  If  I  bj 
the  finger  of  God  cast  out  demons,  then  the  divine 
sovereignty  hath  overtaken  you  unaware.''  This  ap- 
peal to  a  present  reign  of  God  is  something  more  than 
apocalyptic  eschatology.  The  reign  of  God,  Jesus 
maintains,  is  not  to  be  forecast  with  horoscope  or  ob- 
servation, "  neither  shall  they  say,  Lo,  here ;  or  Lo, 
there.  For  the  reign  of  God  is  within  you  " —  or,  if 
you  prefer  so  to  render  it,  "  among  you."  The  impli- 
cation of  the  saying  is  that  God  is  already  at  work. 
The  overthrow  of  Satan  is  already  begun.  The  king- 
dom is  potentially  present.  If,  then,  Jesus  failed  in 
his  endeavor  to  make  ready  for  Jehovah  in  Galilee  a 
people  prepared  for  His  coming,  if  the  work  of  the  sec- 
ond Elijah  taken  up  by  him  did  not  issue  in  the  recon- 
ciliation of  God  with  His  people,  still  his  faith  would 
not  break  do^vn.  The  mustard  seed  was  sown.  The 
leaven  was  working.  The  good  grain  was  cast  into  the 
earth. 

We  can  hardly  do  justice  to  the  records  and  not  ad- 
mit that  Jesus,  like  other  prophets,  did  foreshorten  the 
time.  The  day  of  harvest  and  the  sending  forth  of  the 
reapers  was  more  distant  than  he  thought.  But  his 
faith  laid  hold  not  of  horoscopes  and  forecasts,  but  of 
the  present,  unseen  power  of  God.  It  had  a  deeper 
root  than  the  visions  of  apocalypse.  It  saw  God's  reign 
to  be  present  as  well  as  future,  imminent  as  well  as 
transcendent.  Disappointment  as  to  the  mode  and 
time  would  have  left  Jesus  as  it  left  the  Church  still 
saying,  "  Nevertheless  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  come 
nigh."  2 

Still  more  certainly  may  we  reason  on  analogous 

lines  for  the  movement  of  Jesus'  faith  in  the  face  of 

2  Mk.  3:  22-27  and  parallels.  For  some  excellent  remarks  on 
Jesus'  superiority  to  apocalyptic  eschatology  as  such  see  the 
chapter  on  "  The  Historical  Jesus  "  by  Canon  Streeter  in  Founda- 
tiont. 


THE    GOSPEL    OF    RECONCILIATION  33 

rejection,  desertion,  and  betrayal  to  death,  in  Jeru- 
salem. He  did  not  have  superhuman  foresight,  but  he 
did  have  insight.  And  he  had  the  kind  of  faith  in  God 
which  cries  out  with  martyred  Job,  "  Though  He  slay 
me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  him."  If  he  had  not,  would  the 
frightened,  scattered  handful  of  disciples  who  forsook 
him  and  fled  in  the  last  calamitous  night  ever  have  ral- 
lied again?  So  the  faith  of  Jesus  in  his  calling  and 
his  message  was  not  cast  down  in  the  face  of  disaster, 
and  assuredly  it  did  not  stand  still.  Like  the  faith  of 
his  people,  disappointment  only  led  it  to  higher  forms. 
If  what  seemed  to  be  the  cause  of  God  went  down  with- 
out His  aid,  then  it  did  not  follow  that  there  is  no  cause 
of  God  to  invite  man's  self-devotion,  but  only  that  man 
has  not  yet  conceived  it  on  the  scale  of  its  true  grandeur. 
Therefore  it  is  that  in  that  same  night  in  which  he  was 
betrayed  Jesus  instead  of  receding  advanced.  Instead 
of  qualifying  or  explaining  former  promises,  he  made 
his  very  martyrdom  subserve  the  end.  He  took  bread 
as  he  was  eating  with  his  disciples,  and  when  he  had 
blessed  he  brake  it  and  said,  "  This  is  my  body  that  is 
given  for  you."  And  in  like  manner  the  cup,  saying, 
"  This  is  my  blood  that  is  shed  for  many,  do  this  in  re- 
membrance of  me."  The  people's  faith  that  martyr- 
doms also  advance  the  cause  of  God,  a  faith  that  flamed 
high  in  the  heroic  days  of  the  Maccabees,  had  not  been 
wholly  stifled  by  legalism.^ 

The  supreme  problem  in  the  history  of  our  religion 
is  how  it  could  change  so  profoundly  in  the  brief  space 
that  can  be  allowed  between  the  preaching  of  the  gospel 
of  the  kingdom  by  Jesus  in  Galilee,  and  the  gospel  that 
Paul  referred  to  in  First  Corinthians  as  received  by 

3  Note  the  fact  that  the  names  of  Jesus'  predecessor,  of  his 
brothers,  and  of  his  closest  disciples,  are  those  of  the  Maccabean 
heroes,  Judas,  Simon,  John.  The  resurrection  hero  of  Maccabean 
times,  Eleazar,  the  Arnold  Winkelried  and  John  Huss  of  Jewish 
Martyrology,  becomes  the  "  Lazarus  "  of  the  Gospels. 


34  JESUS    AND    PAUL. 

him  in  the  beginning,  the  redemption  faith  he  expressly 
says  was  common  to  all  disciples.  The  one  is  a  gospel 
of  Jesus,  and  the  other  a  gospel  about  Jesus.  The  one 
is  concerned  with  the  kingdom  of  God,  the  other  with 
eternal  life.  The  one  is  a  religion  of  social  salvation, 
the  other  a  religion  of  personal  salvation.  The  one 
seeks  the  reconciliation  of  Jehovah  to  a  repentant 
people,  the  other  proclaims  atonement  for  the  individual 
soul  estranged  from  God.  There  are  those  who  can  see 
no  inward  development  in  the  faith  of  Jesus  himself,  no 
deepening  of  his  insight  into  the  work  he  must  do  for 
the  kingdom's  sake,  no  transfiguration  of  his  religious 
ideal  in  reaction  against  the  stern  reality  of  failure  and 
martyrdom.  Therefore  they  lay  upon  Paul  all  respon- 
sibility for  the  change.  Arnold  Meyer  puts  the  case  for 
these  when  he  says  in  their  name,  "  Paul  has  obscured 
the  simple  gospel  of  Jesus."  He  has  ''  made  another 
God  of  him  who  would  bring  us  to  God,  and  has  set 
him  between  God  and  ourselves."  He  is  "  responsible 
for  a  tremendous,  momentous,  distorting  transforma- 
tion of  a  religion  in  its  essence  purely  of  the  heart."  ^ 
The  marvel  is  that  Peter  and  Paul,  when  they  differed 
so  widely  and  outspokenly  on  other  things,  should  have 
worked  as  one  in  this.  They  seem  to  kuoAV  no  differ- 
ence in  respect  to  faith  in  the  crucified  and  risen  Lord 
as  the  common  basis  of  their  salvation.^  They  have  one 
Lord,  of  whose  work  of  redemption  they  speak  in  terms 
of  personal  religion :  "  He  loved  me,  and  gave  himself 
for  me." 

We  need  not  minimize  the  expansive  power  of  uni- 
versalism  in  the  soul  of  the  great  Apostle  to  the  Gen- 
tiles, nor  the  significance  of  his  struggle  to  emancipate 
the  nascent  faith  from  the  swathing  bands  of  Jewish 
particularism,  when   we  maintain  that  the  expansive 

^  Jesus  or  Paul  (Engl.).  1009,  o.  3. 
5Cf.  Gal.  2:  15-16;  I  Cor.  15:  3,  11. 


THE    GOSPEL    OF    RECONCILIATION  35 

urge  was  felt  from  within  as  well  as  from  without,  and 
that  Jesus,  as  well  as  Paul,  experienced  enlargement  in 
his  vision  of  the  purpose  of  God  as  regards  the  Gen- 
tiles. Neither  need  we  minimize  the  effect  of  the  re- 
ligious atmosphere  of  the  times  on  the  soul  of  Paul,  to 
say  nothing  of  his  forms  of  thought  and  expression,  if 
we  also  maintain  that  Jesus  could  feel  something  of  the 
same.  K^ot  indeed  because  of  any  Gentile  origin  or  en- 
vironment, but  because  all  religion,  that  of  his  own  peo- 
ple as  well  as  the  outside  world,  was  driven  by  the 
yearning  for  personal  redemption  and  fellowship  with 
God.  And  this  was  not  all.  Jesus  had  his  religious 
agony  as  well  as  Paul.  His  faith  had  to  lift  itself  in 
the  face  of  disaster  to  higher  and  surer  ground.  There- 
fore it  was  not  a  mistake,  but  justice  and  truth,  when 
not  only  Paul,  but  those  who  before  him  had  come  to 
the  vision  of  the  glorified  Redeemer,  refused  after  Cal- 
vary to  go  back  to  the  mere  gospel  of  Galilee,  taking 
instead  the  new  and  larger  gospel  of  Atonement  in  the 
blood  of  the  Crucified,  the  gospel  of  self-dedication. 

The  Hegelian  principle  of  thesis,  antithesis  and  syn- 
thesis, applied  after  the  Tubingen  method  to  the  apo- 
stolic age  as  a  conflict  between  particularism  and  uni- 
versalism,  is  not  enough  to  explain  historical  Christi- 
anity. There  was  an  earlier  impulse  from  within 
under  the  great  law  of  action  and  reaction  by  which 
all  moving  bodies  find  their  equilibrium.  There  was 
the  backward  swing  of  the  pendulum  removed  from  its 
first  support  till  it  found  a  new  stability.  We  know 
how  in  the  history  of  Israel's  faith  the  forward  sweep 
of  great  prophetic  ideals  met  reaction,  whether  from 
mental  and  spiritual  inertia,  or  the  stern  logic  of  events ; 
but  reaction  only  leads  to  resumption  of  the  forward 
movement  on  a  higher  plane.  We  have  seen  how  the 
career  of  Jesus,  little  as  we  can  know  of  its  detail,  re- 
sponds in  the  main  to  this  same  mode  of  apprehension. 


36  JESUS   AND   PAUI, 

His  gospel,  like  Paul's,  is  a  "  gospel  of  reconciliation  " ; 
but  it  has  progressive  phases.  Jesus  begins  by  carry- 
ing the  Baptist's  work  to  its  completion.  He  sets  out 
to  gather  the  lost  sheep  of  Israel  and  by  his  message  of 
repentance  and  faith  to  make  ready  for  Jehovah  a  peo- 
ple prepared  for  Him.  Certainly  it  was,  as  Meyer 
says,  a  "  religion  of  the  heart,"  a  message  of  pure  reli- 
gion and  imdefiled  before  God  the  Father,  the  consum- 
mation of  all  that  the  law  and  the  prophets  had  taught. 
The  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son  embodies  it.  But  it 
did  not  win  Israel.  Of  all  that  work  in  Galilee  there 
remains  in  Acts  not  one  trace  save  the  mention  in  a  geo- 
graphical formula  that  after  the  conversion  of  Paul 
"  the  Church  throughout  all  Judaea  and  Galilee  and 
Samaria  had  rest."  Driven  out  from  Galilee  Jesus 
took  up  a  larger  undertaking  attended  with  far  greater 
danger.  And  with  it  we  see  his  message  assuming  a 
new  form.  It  is  now  a  message  of  individual  life 
through  death.  It  is  addressed  to  a  smaller  group,  and 
his  own  person  becomes  more  central.  Those  that  are 
faithful  to  the  death  will  be  confessed  by  him  in  the 
presence  of  his  Father  and  the  holy  angels.  Again 
there  is  disappointment,  and  still  greater.  His  attempt 
at  Jerusalem  to  win  the  nation  to  seek  under  his  own 
leadership  its  historic  ideal  issued  in  disaster.  But 
the  movement  is  not  arrested.  Jesus  seeks  through  his 
death  to  accomplish  what  he  could  not  through  his  life. 
He  becomes  a  leader  for  all  who  will  follow  through 
death  itself  into  the  very  presence  of  the  Father. 

We  have  learned  to  isolate  in  our  minds  the  gospel 
of  Jesus  from  the  gospel  of  Paul,  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
preached  in  Galilee  of  Israel's  reconciliation  with  God 
by  repentance  and  faith,  to  the  realization  of  the  king- 
dom and  the  gospel  ah  out  Jesus  preached  from  Jerusa- 
lem round  about  unto  Illyricum,  the  gospel  of  recon- 
ciliation with  God  by  the  blood  of  his  sacrifice,  a  gospel 


THE    GOSPEL   OF   EECONCTLIATION  37 

of  individual  salvation  and  eternal  life.  It  is  well  in- 
deed to  differentiate  these,  for  they  are  far  from  identi- 
cal. But  when  we  set  them  as  it  were  in  antagonism, 
or  make  them  mutually  exclusive,  are  we  not  applying  a 
standard  which  is  static  rather  than  dynamic,  conceiv- 
ing the  mind  of  Jesus  as  if  it  were  the  system  of  a  book 
rather  than  the  growing,  expansive  energy  of  a  living, 
conquering  faith  ?  We  are  now  attempting  to  show  that 
the  religious  movement  we  seek  to  understand  is  con- 
tinuous rather  than  disjunctive,  a  movement  of  Jesus 
and  Paul  rather  than  an  opposition  and  alternative  of 
Jesus  or  Paul.  Perhaps  we  cannot  do  better  for  this 
purpose  than  look  back  over  the  simple  outline  of  Jesus' 
career  as  we  know  it  from  elements  of  the  record  that 
are  beyond  all  rational  dispute,  recapitulating  the  story 
as  it  must  have  been  knovni  to  Paul  himself  even  before 
he  became  a  Christian. 

When  Jesus  took  up  the  work  of  John  the  Baptist 
after  the  imprisonment  of  the  great  reformer,  echoing 
the  cry,  "  Repent,  for  the  reign  of  God  is  at  hand  " ; 
when  he  carried  forward  the  work  of  his  former  leader, 
leaving  the  solitudes  of  the  wilderness  of  Judea  and 
appealing  to  the  busy  throngs  of  his  native  Galilee,  we 
know  what  his  feeling  was  toward  his  great  predecessor. 
We  know  that  he  thought  of  John's  work  as  "  from 
heaven,"  the  great  "  sign  from  heaven  "  of  that  genera- 
tion. The  baptism  of  John  was  to  Jesus  nothing  less 
than  a  fulfillment  of  the  promise  of  a  second  coming 
of  Elijah  to  effect  the  Great  Repentance  of  Israel,  with- 
out which  Jehovah's  expected  advent  would  be  a  curse 
rather  than  a  blessing,  a  coming  to  judgment  rather 
than  for  deliverance.  As  Elijah  on  Carmel  had 
"  turned  the  heart  of  the  people  back  again  "  from  the 
service  of  Baal  to  Jehovah,  so  Malachi  had  foretold 
that  before  that  great  and  terrible  day  of  Jehovah's 
coming  a  prophet  should  be  raised  up  in  the  spirit  and 


38  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

power  of  Elijah,  to  effect  a  recouciliation  of  the  people 
with  their  God  by  a  supreme  act  of  repentance.  Prob- 
ably we  may  take  the  reading  which  seems  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  Ben  Sirach  two  centuries  before  this  date  as 
more  authentic  than  that  of  our  Massoretic  text:  at 
least  it  represents  better  what  Jesus  seems  to  take  as 
the  mind  of  the  prophet.  The  second  Elijah  is  "  to 
pacify  wrath  before  it  break  forth,  to  turn  the  heart  of 
the  Father  to  the  children  and  the  children  to  the 
Father/'  ^  lest  His  coming  should  be  to  smite  the  earth 
with  a  curse.  It  was  because  this  work  of  preparation 
for  the  coming  reign  of  God  was  given  to  John  that 
Jesus  thought  of  him  as  a  prophet  and  more  than  a 
prophet,  and  his  baptism  as  "  from  heaven  and  not  of 
men."  His  acceptance  of  that  baptism  means  his  dedi- 
cation of  himself  to  the  work  of  averting  the  \vrath  of 
God  from  his  people,  by  turning  their  hearts  to  Him  in 
repentance. 

Consciously  or  not,  Jesus'  own  work  in  Galilee  was 
a  continuation  of  that  of  John.  As  such  it  could  not 
be  anything  else  but  the  work  of  a  prophet.  It  was  a 
gospel  of  "  reconciliation."  Like  John,  Jesus,  too, 
came  preaching  repentance  in  view  of  the  coming  Reign 
of  God.  Unlike  John  he  went  forth  to  gather  the  lost 
sheep  of  Jehovah's  scattered  flock,  resisting  the  self- 
righteous  legalism  of  scribes  and  Pharisees,  befriend- 
ing repentant  publicans  and  sinners.  To  his  0"\vn  gen- 
eration in  Galilee  he  was  "  the  prophet  of  J^azareth  " — 
when  it  was  not  "  John  the  Baptist  risen  from  the 
dead."  And  to  a  later  generation  of  his  own  follow- 
ers, men  of  Jewish  descent  and  reactionary  in  their  re- 
ligious tendencies,  this  activity  of  Jesus  in  Galilee  was 
the  sum  and  substance  of  his  mission.  To  them  he  was, 
as  we  still  find  it  in  their  literature,  a  prophet,  and  not 
merely  "a"  prophet,  but  ''the"  prophet;  by  which 

eEcclus.  48:  10. 


THE   GOSPEL    OF   EECONCILIATION  39 

they  meant  the  "  Prophet  like  unto  Moses  "  promised 
in  Deuteronomy,  who  should  perpetuate  the  teaching  of 
Moses  and  interpret  it  for  all  future  time.  To  the 
Ebionito  Christian  of  the  second  century  there  was 
nothing-  higher  that  could  be  said  of  the  ministry  of 
Jesus  than  that  ho  fulfilled  their  promise  of  a  prophet 
like  unto  Moses  "  raised  up  unto  you  from  among  your 
brethren."  For  to  a  Jew  like  Philo  Moses  was  not 
merely  prophet  and  teacher  of  Israel,  but  (as  he  calls 
him  in  his  Life  of  Moses)  "  the  mediator  and  reconciler 
of  the  world."  "^ 

When  one  reads  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  and  the 
other  records  of  Jesus'  spiritual  interpretation  of  the 
Law  one  must  admit  the  aptness  of  the  comparison. 
Surely,  if  he  had  done  nothing  more  than  give  utter- 
ance by  his  parables  and  teachings  to  his  own  simple, 
sublime  apprehension  of  what  God  expects  from  man, 
and  man  may  look  for  from  his  Father  in  heaven,  Jesus 
would  deserve  the  title  of  the  Second  Moses.  But  the 
Second  Source  is  willing  to  leave  the  title  of  "  Prophet  " 
to  John.     It  depicts  Jesus  as  the  "  Wisdom  "  of  God. 

The  cause  of  the  prophet  met  defeat  in  Galilee. 
Jesus  was  driven  into  exile  by  the  Pharisees  in  con- 
spiracy with  members  of  the  court  of  Antipas,  with  the 
aid  of  "  scribes  who  came  down  from  Jerusalem." 
Chorazin  and  Bethsaida  turned  a  deaf  ear  in  spite  of 
mighty  works  that  would  have  converted  Tyre  and 
Sidon,  and  a  warning  from  God  weightier  than  that 
which  turned  Nineveh  to  repentance.  Capernaum,  ex- 
alted to  heaven  as  the  scene  of  the  first  proclamation 
of  the  gospel  and  the  center  of  the  work  of  reclamation, 
looked  away,  knowing  as  little  the  time  of  her  visita- 
tion as  later  did  Jerusalem.     After  the  onslaught  upon 

1  Vita  Mos.  iii,  19.  Cf.  Assumptio  Mos.  ix,  16.  (When  Moses 
is  gone,  Joshua  says,  Israel  will  fall  an  easy  prey  to  their  enemies, 
for  a  single  provocation  of  God  will  lead  to  disaster,  since  they 
will  have  no  Intercessor.) 


40  JESUS    AND    PAUIi 

Jesus  a  dispersed  and  discouraged  remnant  of  the  hum- 
bler class  were  forced  to  hide  their  loyalty  to  his  move- 
ment, if  they  still  cherished  it.  Jesus  himself  withdrew 
with  a  handful  of  followers,  never  again  to  appear 
openly  in  Galilee.  Such  was  the  end  of  the  first  phase 
of  his  ministry,  his  continuation  of  the  work  of  John. 
True,  the  proclamation  was  on  a  higher  scale  than 
John's.  It  had  a  new  note  of  hope  and  love  that  came 
upon  the  harsh  wailings  of  the  Baptist's  cry  like  wed- 
ding music  after  a  funeral  dirge.  Still  it  did  not  go 
beyond  the  domain  of  Moses  and  Elias.  It  was  an 
effort  to  bring  Israel  into  reconciliation  with  God  by  a 
great  repentance,  and  a  new  and  higher  obedience.  It 
failed  through  unbelief. 

What  might  have  come  if  Jesus'  challenge  to  the  re- 
ligious control  of  the  Synagogue  leaders  in  Galilee  had 
been  successful  is  difficult  to  estimate.  Actually,  if  he 
proposed  to  continue  his  work  for  the  reign  of  God  he 
had  now  only  the  choice  of  going  to  the  Gentiles  and 
teaching  them,  or  of  renewing  the  struggle  for  the  lead- 
ership among  his  own  people  at  Jerusalem,  where  he 
must  wrest  it  out  of  the  hands  not  of  mere  scribes  and 
Synagogue  leaders,  but  of  the  Sadducean  hierocracy, 
the  half-religious,  half-political  control  of  the  priest- 
hood in  the  temple. 

As  we  all  know,  the  story  of  the  second  period  in 
Jesus'  career  begins  with  the  raising  of  the  question 
whether  or  no  he  is  the  Messiah,  and  if  so,  in  what  sense. 
The  national  leadership  of  the  Maccabean  hierocracy 
had  its  seat  in  the  temple.  This  was  the  last  refuge  of 
Jewish  autonomy,  the  center  of  all  its  national  hopes, 
patriotic  as  well  as  religious,  and  withal  it  was  one  of 
the  strongest  fortresses  in  Syria,  garrisoned  within  by 
an  ample  Levitical  police  under  a  ''  captain  of  the  tem- 
ple," and  without  by  a  Roman  cohort.     To  challenge 


THE    GOSPEL    OF    RECONCILIATION  41 

this  hierocracy  in  its  stronghold  was  an  undertaking 
that  could  not  well  fail  to  raise  the  question  of  author- 
ity. All  the  more  unavoidable  would  it  be  if  he  who 
took  the  lead  was  understood  to  be  one  "  of  the  seed  of 
David  according  to  the  flesh " ;  and  we  know  from 
Paul's  own  statement  that  such  was  the  belief  regarding 
Jesus.  If  his  conviction  that  the  reign  of  God  was  at 
hand  was  still  strong  enough  for  decisive  action,  if  he 
now  aspired  to  pass  beyond  a  mere  campaign  of  propa- 
ganda, and  to  become  in  any  active  sense  a  leader  of 
the  nation  as  a  whole,  it  would  involve  a  definite  an- 
swer to  the  question:  What  of  the  expected  Son  of 
David  ?  Hitherto  there  had  been  no  serious  mention 
of  Messianism.  Save  for  the  senseless  cry  of  a  maniac, 
there  had  been  nothing  in  Jesus'  career  of  teacher  and 
healer  to  call  it  to  public  notice.  The  Gospels  tell  us 
that  he  now  raised  the  question  himself.  Would  he 
now  assume  the  mission  of  the  Christ  ? 

How  much  there  was  to  give  color  of  truth  to  the  accu- 
sation which  sent  Jesus  by  Pilate's  order  to  the  cross  is 
not  easy  to  say.  One  thing  we  do  know.  Jesus  pro- 
tested to  the  utmost  against  any  messiahship  according 
to  the  things  of  man.  His  program  was  not  political. 
But  on  the  other  hand  it  certainly  was  no  longer  merely 
that  of  prophet  and  teacher.  It  had  reference  now  to 
the  nation  as  a  whole,  and  it  began  with  the  establish- 
ment of  a  new  regime  in  the  national  sanctuary.  An 
unambiguous  "  N'o,"  to  the  question  of  Pilate:  "Art 
thou  a  king,  then  ?  "  supported  as  it  could  so  easily  have 
been  by  convincing  evidence  of  the  religious  character 
of  Jesus'  work,  might  well  have  spared  him  the  cross. 
But  he  did  not  give  it.  His  answer  was  silence,  or  the 
ambiguous  "  Thou  sayest."  He  was  a  son  of  David, 
and  he  had  at  least  as  much  of  the  sense  of  obligation 


42  JESUS    AND    PAUL. 

to  achieve,  so  far  as  in  him  lay,  the  destiny  of  his  peo- 
ple, as  characterized  others,  such  as  Hillel,  who  could 
point  to  a  similar  pedigree. 

The  anticipations  of  a  fatal  issue  carry  their  own 
hint  of  the  nature  of  the  enterprise  now  undertaken. 
When  Jesus  set  his  face  steadfastly  to  go  up  to  Jerusa- 
lem at  the  approaching  Passover,  with  a  warning  to 
the  handful  that  still  followed  him  that  it  might  mean 
death  to  him  and  them,  he  was  not  thinking  of  such 
dangers  as  they  had  already  encountered.  There  is 
great  latitude  of  teaching  in  Judaism,  and  always  has 
been.  The  threat  came  from  a  different  quarter.  If  in 
the  warning  the  very  mode  of  death,  crucifixion,  was 
mentioned,  that  would  make  it  certain  that  the  fate 
which  Jesus  apprehended  was  that  of  an  insurrectionist 
against  the  Roman  power.  There  could  then  be  no 
doubt  that  the  nature  of  his  undertaking  was  akin  to 
messianism  to  say  the  least.  But  the  precise  language 
of  the  warning  must  remain  uncertain.  The  fact  we 
may  be  sure  of.  And  even  were  this  denied,  it  is  certain 
that  Jesus  did  dispute  the  leadership  of  the  hierocracy 
in  the  temple  itself;  that  he  was,  for  a  few  brief  days, 
supported  by  the  fickle  enthusiasm  of  the  people;  and 
that  he  then  succumbed  to  an  intrigue  of  the  priests  in 
collusion  with  the  Tioman  procurator.  He  did,  then, 
assume  the  leadership  in  an  effort  to  realize  the  messi- 
anic hope.  And  for  the  second  time  he  failed  because 
of  unbelief. 

Two  possibilities  opened  before  Jesus  at  Caesarea 
Philippi  as  he  made  the  decision  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem 
to  confront  life  or  death.  It  was  possible  that  he  might 
succeed.  Had  it  not  seemed  so  to  the  Twelve  they 
would  not  have  followed  him.  That  it  actually  was 
possible  is  proved  by  the  event ;  for  the  movement  was 
sufficiently  formidable  on  purely  political  grounds  to 
lead  the  Eoman  governor,  impervious  as  he  surely  was 


THE    GOSPEL    OF    RECONCILIATION  43 

to  all  merely  religious  considerations,  to  send  the  high- 
minded  Teacher  to  the  cross.  That  it  seriously  threat- 
ened the  control  of  the  Sanhedrin  is  manifest  both  from 
their  mortal  hatred  of  the  agitator,  and  from  their  fear 
of  the  people,  a  fear  which  for  days  left  the  question 
of  his  control  or  theirs  hanging  in  the  balance. 

Just  consider  the  practical  wisdom  of  Jesus'  plan. 
To  confine  the  issue  to  the  temple  and  its  interests, 
avoiding  civil  affairs  and  questions  of  governmental 
authority,  might  secure  immunity  from  Roman  inter- 
vention. Pilate  would  not  find  such  a  national  leader 
as  this  Son  of  David  more  obnoxious  to  Roman  suze- 
rainty than  scheming  high  priests  or  ambitious  Hero- 
dians.  If  in  addition  Zealot  nationalism  could  be  kept 
within  bounds,  and  the  hostility  of  Pharisees  and  scribes 
disarmed  by  the  obvious  purity  and  high  motive  of  the 
Leader,  it  was  not  inconceivable  that  he  should  succeed. 
A  reformation  which  began  at  the  house  of  God  offered 
the  one  chance  of  success.  In  point  of  fact  for  the  time 
being  Jesus  did  succeed.  He  was  welcomed  by  the 
multitude  with  shouts  for  the  coming  kingdom  of  David. 
He  did  take  control  of  the  temple,  freeing  it  from 
abuses,  and  making  it  a  place  of  pure  worship  such  as 
Malachi  had  demanded  as  the  condition  of  Jehovah's 
presence.  The  catastrophe  which  followed  this  reli- 
gious coup  d'etat  was  not  a  foregone  conclusion  at 
Caesarea  Philippi,  however  inevitable  it  was  that  the 
Church  should  later  so  regard  it. 

On  the  other  hand  there  was  an  ominous  alternative, 
of  which,  as  we  have  seen,  Jesus  made  no  concealment 
from  his  followers.  It  was  quite  possible  that  all  might 
suffer  together  the  fate  of  insurrectionists.  If  Jesus 
failed  of  national  acceptance  and  God  did  not  intervene 
with  superhuman  aid  they  could  only  save  their  lives  by 
losing  tliem.  Failure  did  not  mean  that  the  kingdom 
would  not  come.     On  the  contrary,  this  very  generation 


44  JESUS    AND    PAUL, 

would  surely  see  it.  But  only  the  power  of  God  would 
bring  it.  It  would  have  to  be  given  as  the  prophet 
Daniel  had  seen  it  in  vision,  to  one  like  unto  a  son  of 
man,  brought  on  the  clouds  of  heaven  to  receive  it  before 
the  judgment  throne  of  the  Ancient  of  Days.  There- 
fore Jesus  added  to  his  assurance  of  the  certainty  of  its 
coming  the  further,  personal  promise  to  every  loyal 
follower,  that  those  who  should  fearlessly  confess  him 
on  earth,  defying  death,  he  also  would  acknowledge  in 
the  presence  of  his  Father  before  the  holy  angels.  The 
promise  is  recalled  a  full  generation  after  in  one  of  the 
most  ancient  hymns  of  the  Church : 

If  we  die  with  him  we  shall  also  live  with  him: 
If  we  endure  we  shall  also  reign  with  him: 
If  we  shall  deny  him  he  also  will  deny  us: 
If  we  are  faithless,  he  abideth  faithful; 
For  he  cannot  deny  himself.^ 

What  would  have  been  the  consequence  if  Jesus'  ap- 
peal to  Jerusalem  had  succeeded  ?  Paul  and  the  fourth 
evangelist  make  very  clear  what  the  result  would  have 
been  so  far  as  concerns  the  expansive  forces  of  the  faith, 
if  I  may  call  them  so.  The  gospel  would  have  remained 
primarily  the  aifair  of  the  Jewish  people.  In  all  the 
domain  of  the  might-have-beens  surely  there  is  no  better 
founded  statement  than  Paul's,  that  the  rejection  and 
death  of  the  Messiah  at  the  hands  of  his  own  people  was 
unavoidable  in  the  providential  ordering  of  the  world, 
if  the  ancient  middle  wall  of  partition  was  to  be  broken 
down,  and  the  Gentiles  were  to  be  made  fellow-heirs  of 
the  promise  with  the  election  of  God.  The  cross  does 
mark  the  transition  from  particularism  to  universalism. 
The  fourth  evangelist  depicts  the  great  decision  under 
the  form  of  a  delegation  of  Gentiles  waiting  upon  Jesus 
just  before  the  catastrophe,  and  receiving  as  their  only 

8  11  Tim.  2:  11-13. 


THE    GOSPEL    OF    RECONCILIATION  45 

reply  from  him :  "  The  hour  is  come  that  the  Son  of 
Man  should  be  glorified.  He  that  loveth  his  life  loseth 
it ;  and  he  that  hateth  his  life  in  this  world  shall  keep  it 
unto  life  eternal.  Now  is  the  Prince  of  this  world  cast 
out,  and  I,  if  I  be  lifted  up,  will  draw  all  men  unto 
me."  This  scene,  ideal  as  it  may  be,  does  not  exag- 
gerate the  significance  of  what  the  evangelist  calls  "  the 
crisis  of  this  world."  The  religious  unity  of  the  race 
was  sealed,  as  Paul  well  says,  in  the  blood  of  Christ. 
God  did  reconcile  Jew  and  Gentile  in  one  body  through 
the  cross,  having  slain  the  enmity  thereby.^  But  we 
are  not  speaking  now  of  what  may  be  called  the  exten- 
sive, but  of  the  intensive  movement  of  the  faith.  What 
was  the  consequence  to  Jesus'  own  faith  of  the  bitter  dis- 
appointment of  his  hope,  of  the  frustration  of  all  the 
toil,  the  prayers,  the  tears  that  he  had  given  to  the 
winning  of  his  people  to  their  own  national  ideal  and 
the  fulfillment  of  the  promise  of  God  so  near  attain- 
ment? 

The  answer  to  our  question  cannot  be  given  without 
the  story  of  the  night  of  final  parting  and  the  supreme 
parable  in  which  Jesus  embodied  the  last  and  loftiest 
teaching  of  all.  From  the  time  when  he  had  taken  up 
the  message  of  the  Baptist  his  one  effort  had  been  to 
prepare  for  the  reign  of  God  by  bringing  Israel  through 
repentance  and  faith  into  "  reconciliation  "  with  its  Fa- 
ther in  Heaven.  As  prophet  and  teacher  in  Galilee  he 
had  failed.  Out  of  defeat  he  snatched  victory.  He 
made  the  cause  national  by  his  appeal  as  Son  of  David 
and  Son  of  Man  in  Jerusalem.  Again  he  had  failed. 
There  was  but  one  thing  more  he  could  do  for  the 
"  reconciliation."  He  could  dedicate  his  body  and 
blood  as  an  atonement  offering  for  the  forgiveness  of 
sin,  that  God  might  be  reconciled  to  his  people. 

I  am  well  aware  that  there  is  little  or  nothing  in 

»  Jn.  12:  20-36;  cf.  Eph.  2:  13-22. 


46  JESUS    AND    PAUL. 

Jesus'  earlier  teaching  that  is  akin  to  this  priestly  gos- 
pel of  atonement,  or  "  reconciliation,"  KaraAAay^,  as 
Paul  calls  it.  It  is  the  very  point  of  what  I  am  saying 
that  it  was  a  new  development,  something  which  would 
never  have  come  but  through  the  agony  of  a  disap- 
pointed hope,  the  agony  renewed  in  Gethsemane.  But 
it  does  mark  the  foi*ward  leap  of  a  faith  that  conquers 
even  death,  the  impulse  onward  and  upward  of  one  Avho 
could  learn  by  the  things  which  he  suffered.  The  last 
supper  was  a  renewal  of  the  assurance  of  meeting  again 
in  the  kingdom.  In  the  face  of  disastrous  earthly  de- 
feat, desertion,  death,  it  was  a  reiteration  of  the  prom- 
ise: Him  that  confesseth  me  before  men  will  I  also 
confess  before  my  Father  and  the  holy  angels.  It  was 
a  pledge  to  meet  again  at  the  banquet  table  of  the  new 
Jerusalem,  for  the  reign  of  God  was  not  defeated.  But 
there  was  more  in  it  than  that.  There  remained  still  a 
work  to  be  done  by  him  whose  mission  had  been  from 
the  beginning  to  turn  away  wrath  by  reconciling  the 
children  to  the  Father  and  the  Father  to  the  children. 
Jewish  martyr ology  of  Jesus'  time  tells  of  a  Maccabean 
hero  who  dedicates  his  life-blood  on  his  people's  behalf, 
praying,  "  Thou  knowest,  O  God,  that  when  safety  was 
offered  me  I  chose  to  die  in  fiery  torments  for  the  sake 
of  the  Law.  Be  propitious  (lAews  yevov)  to  thy  people, 
let  the  punishment  suffice  thee  which  we  endure  on  their 
behalf;  make  my  blood  an  expiation  (Kaddpcnov)  for 
them,  and  take  my  life  as  a  ransom  (avTitj/vxov)  for 
theirs."  ^'^  It  is  in  the  same  spirit  that  Jesus  also  dedi- 
cates his  body  and  blood,  for  the  forgiveness  of  the  peo- 
ple's sin,  and  promises  intercession  on  their  behalf  in 
the  presence  of  the  Father. 

I  know  that  the  words  of  institution  of  the  Sacrament 
10  IV  Mace.  6:  27-29;  cf.  Ignatius  ad  Eph.  viii,  1,  and  xxi,  1: 


THE    GOSPEL    OF    RECONCILIATION  47 

stand  practically  alone  in  Gospel  narrative  to  support 
that  conception  of  Jesus'  work  which  is  the  very  heart 
of  the  gospel  of  Paul.     One  can  go  further  still.     The 
latest  of  the  Synoptic  evangelists,  if  we  follow  the  most 
authentic  text,  obliterates  even  what  little  we  find  in 
Mark  of  this  gospel  of  atonement.     In  the  entire  double 
work  of  Luke  you  will  find  but  one  intimation  that  the 
death  of  Jesus  has  anything  to  do  with  the  forgiveness 
of  sin.     It  is  the  reference  in  Paul's  speech  before  the 
elders  of  the  Ephesian  church  at  Miletus  to  the  Church 
as  "  bought  with  blood."     That  is  a  vestigial  remnant 
of  Paul  rather  than  a  teaching  of  Luke.     Luke's  teach- 
ing is  not  evangelic  but  apologetic.     He  is  never  tired 
of  pointing  to  the  prediction  by  the  prophets  of  the  suf- 
fering of  Christ;  but  only  to  prove  that  such  was  the 
determinate  foreknowledge  and  counsel  of  God,  never 
as  having  any  relation  to  the  forgiveness  of  sin.     Those 
who  cannot  realize  that  these  Synoptic  records  as  they 
stand  represent  a  reaction  from  the  Pauline  gospel  of 
grace  toward  the  neo-legalism  of  the  Christianized  Syna- 
gogue, go  as  far  astray  in  one  direction  as  those  who 
leave  no  room  for  the  advance  of  Jesus'  thought  beyond 
the  stage  of  his  work  in  Galilee  in  the  other.     Both 
would  persuade  us  that  this  idea  of  the  atonement-offer- 
ing represents  a  Pauline  innovation,  an  interpretation 
of  his  own  placed  on  Jesus'  words.     But  somehow  we 
have  got  to  account  for  the  fact  that  after  this  not  Paul 
only  but  every  Christian  looks  upon  Jesus  as  his  inter- 
cessor with  God,  and  never  offers  a  prayer  without  ex- 
pecting to  be  heard  "  for  Jesus'  sake."     Jesus  is  not 
only  the  Advocate  who  confesses  before  His  Father  the 
name  of  those  who  had  confessed  him  on  earth,  but  In- 
tercessor and  Mediator  with  the  Judge  of  all.     He  is 
One  who  had  been  "  raised  again  for  our  justification." 
It  is  not  easy  to  regard  as  "  innovation  "  what  Paul  de- 


48  JESUS    AND    PAUL. 

clares  to  be  the  essential  thing  committed  to  every  am- 
bassador of  Christ, ^^  that  which  forms  the  heart  of  the 
message  in  Revelation,  in  Hebrews,  in  First  Peter,  as 
well  as  in  Paul,  to  say  nothing  of  Clement  and  the  later 
writers. 

I  do  not  say  that  the  thought  of  Jesus  in  his  farewell 
utterance  to  the  faithful  Twelve  was  identical  with  that 
which  I  have  quoted  from  the  martyr's  prayer  in  Fourth 
Maccabees,  but  I  do  say  with  Arnold  Meyer,  "  The  be- 
lief in  propitiation  by  means  of  blood  dominated  the 
whole  Jewish  and  Gentile  world."  ^^  Ti-ue,  purifica- 
tion by  the  blood  of  bulls  and  goats  had  long  since  been 
recognized  in  Judaism  as  symbolic  only,  a  divinely  pro- 
vided substitute  for  that  offering  of  the  firstborn  for 
one's  transgression,  the  fruit  of  the  body  for  the  sin  of 
the  soul,  which  the  religious  instinct  at  first  suggests. 
Since  Ezekiel's  time  there  had  been  strong  reaction 
against  the  Isaian  doctrine  of  vicarious  suffering.  It 
appears  in  the  growing  protest  of  legalism  against  the 
idea  of  national  or  family  solidarity.  But  this  ethical 
reaction  has  never  obliterated  from  the  instinctive  reli- 
gion of  the  ordinary  man,  not  even  in  Judaism,  the 
belief  in  the  efficacy  of  voluntary  martyrdom  to  win 
back  the  favor  of  a  justly  offended  God.  You  cannot 
easily  eradicate  from  the  mind  of  the  common  soldier 
(and  perhaps  you  ought  not)  the  conviction  that  the 
dying  prayer  of  a  good  comrade  who  freely  laid  down 
a  pure  life  for  God  and  country  availeth  much,  and  (if 
he  looks  for  a  life  to  come)  the  belief  that  such  a  com- 
rade is  a  friend  worth  having,  even  at  the  court  of  God. 
The  songs  of  the  suffering  Servant  in  Deutero-Isaiah 

nil  Cor.  5:  20. 

12  Jesus  or  Paul,  Engl.,  p.  52.  For  a  sympathetic  interpreta- 
tion of  the  feeling  of  antiquity  see  Gilbert  Murray,  "  The  Essence 
of  Christianity  "  in  The  A'.  /'.  ().  Annual,  1!)18,  p.  14.  Marduk.  the 
lledeemer-god  is  "  the  Faithful  Son  "  who  gives  his  life  for  his 
people,  facing  death,  to  atone  for  the  sins  of  others. 


THE    GOSPEL    OF    RECONCILIATION  49 

give  sublimest  expression  to  this  belief  as  the  poet's  mes- 
sage to  the  "  crucified  nation  "  of  the  ancient  world. 
Legalistic  Judaism  obscured,  but  did  not  eradicate  this 
faith.  In  the  Jewish  as  in  the  Gentile  world  men  con- 
tinued to  believe  in  a  personal  God  Avho  is  moved  by 
the  intercession  of  those  who  have  died  for  His  sake, 
and  for  tlie  hope  of  the  nation. ^^  In  the  Aramaic 
Targum  on  the  famous  fifth  verse  of  that  song  of  the 
Suffering  Servant,  where  it  is  declared  that  he  is 
wounded  for  our  transgression,  to  achieve  our  peace,  the 
translator  renders :  "  He  will  intercede  for  our  sins 
and  transgressions,  and  for  His  sake  they  will  be  for- 
given." For  this  he  is  "  exalted  and  made  very  high." 
The  author  of  the  Maccabean  martyrology  from  which 
I  have  already  quoted  goes  further  still.  He  believes 
with  Paul  that  those  whose  lives  were  thus  given  are 
"  raised  for  our  justification,"  and  that  immediately. 
With  the  author  of  the  Revelation  he  conceives  of  them 
as  pleading  for  Israel  from  underneath  the  altar  of 
God's  presence.  Resting  upon  a  passage  from  the 
Blessing  of  Moses  in  Deuteronomy  he  declares  that  "  be- 
cause of  their  heroic  endurance  they  already  stand  be- 
fore the  throne  of  God  and  are  even  now  living  the 
blessed  life.  As  Moses  said,  '  All  thy  sanctified  ones 
are  underneath  thy  hands,'  so  these  too,  having  been 
sanctified  on  God's  account  (i.  e.,  having  dedicated 
themselves  in  His  cause),  were  honored  not  with  this 
reward  alone  (i.  e.,  the  special  '  first  resurrection ') 
but  also  with  victory  of  their  people  over  the  enemy, 
punishment  of  the  tyrant,  and  purification  (Ka^apto-^os) 
of  their  fatherland;  so  that  they  became  a  redemption 
(avTitj/vxov)  for  the  sin  of  the  nation." 

13  Cf.  Eth.  Enoch.  XLVII,  1,  2,  on  the  reconciliation  of  God  by 
blood  and  intercession  of  martyrs,  and  on  Jewish  belief  as  a  whole. 
Oesterley,  The  Jewish  Doctrine  of  Mediation,  1910.  On  the  inter- 
pretation of  Is.  53,  Dalman  Jesaia  53,  1914,  and  Der  Leidende  und 
sterbende  Messias  der  Synagoge,  1888.  The  fundamental  work  is 
Neubauer  and  Driver,  Jewish  Interpreters  of  Isaiah  LIII,  1877. 


50  JESUS    AXD    PAUL 

Fortunately  for  the  deepest,  truest  message  of  Chris- 
tianity to  the  world  it  is  impossible  to  dissociate  from 
the  farewell  parable  of  Jesus  its  fundamental  signifi- 
cance as  a  covenant  in  the  blood  of  the  Christ.  The 
Sacrament  has  many  meanings,  but  deepest  of  all  is  that 
of  the  self-dedication  of  Jesus,  accompanied  by  a  prom- 
ise that  he  would  carry  the  cause  of  his  loyal  ones  into 
the  very  presence  of  the  Father.  Thus  he  would  make 
intercession  for  them  with  his  blood.  This  is  not  later 
innovation.  This  is  "  from  the  Lord."  Every  other 
word  of  the  ISTew  Testament  might  be  undermined  or 
discarded,  but  this  would  remain  unshaken  as  long  as 
one  believer  remained  to  do  this  in  remembrance  of 
him,  and  to  tell  the  story  of  the  Lord's  death  until  he 
come.  I  admit  that  it  is  a  new  teaching  not  heard  in 
Galilee.  It  is  not  the  utterance  of  a  prophet.  The 
work  of  the  prophet  and  teacher  had  failed.  It  is  not 
the  utterance  of  the  Messianic  leader,^*  The  work  of 
the  national  leader  had  also  failed.  It  marks  a  new 
phase  in  the  ministry  on  a  new  and  higher  stage.  It 
is  the  utterance  of  the  dedicated  priest  and  intercessor 
with  God.  The  last  office  which  Jesus'  loyalty  to  the 
cause  of  the  kingdom  compels  him  to  take  is  one  that 
no  man  taketh  upon  himself  but  when  he  is  called  of 
God.  It  was  an  unforeseen  consequence  of  Jesus'  at- 
tempt to  take  the  temple  out  of  the  control  of  a  corrupt 
and  unworthy  priesthood,  and  make  it  again  his  Fa- 
ther's house.  The  Temple  and  its  priesthood  disap- 
peared, but  in  three  days  another  and  a  greater  temple 
took  its  place.  Through  the  very  agony  of  his  defeat 
Jesus  himself  was  "  made  a  highpriest  forever  after  the 
order  of  Melchizedek." 

1*  Dalman  {ubi  supra)  has  produced  abundant  evidence  that 
Is.  53  was  interpreted  in  some  quarters  as  applying  to  the  Mes- 
siali.  Tlie  Targum  on  the  prophets  so  interprets  it,  and  the  early 
Church  did  so.  But  there  is  no  sulhcient  evidence  that  Jesus  did, 
and  the  Twelve  clearly  did  not. 


THE    GOSPEL    OF    RECONCILIATION  51 

It  was  not  my  purpose  in  making  this  retrospect  of 
the  progressive  phases  of  Jesus'  "  gospel  of  reconcili- 
ation "  to  plead  for  higher  valuation  of  the  epistolary- 
literature  of  the  great  missionary  age  of  the  Church,  as 
sources  much  more  ancient  and  authentic  than  the  Syn- 
optic Gospels.  Earliest  of  all  the  records,  in  fact  coeval 
with  the  utterance  of  the  Master  is  the  Sacrament  itself. 
But  it  was  not  my  purpose  here  to  plead  for  the  prior 
record.  Still  less  was  it  my  purpose  to  defend  any  of 
the  mediaeval  caricatures  of  Jesus'  parting  "  covenant 
of  blood  "  which  go  by  the  name  of  "  theories  of  the 
atonement."  The  exegete  has  no  parti  pris  in  matters 
of  doctrine.  My  object  was  purely  historical.  The  at- 
tempt was  simply  to  show  that  the  relation  of  Jesus  and 
Paul  is  not  a  static  parallelism  or  opposition,  but  dy- 
namic. The  sweep  of  that  great  tide  of  faith  in  God 
which  made  the  religion  that  we  own  was  driven  by  no 
earth-born  power.  The  impulse  was  "  from  heaven." 
Jesus  took  over  its  leadership  and  interpretation  from 
one  who  was  a  prophet  indeed,  and  more  than  a  prophet. 
He  carried  it  to  a  higher,  and  yet  higher  level.  Not 
in  obedience  to  his  ovm  design,  but  as  confessedly  and 
consciously  acting  for  God,  and  constantly  walking  by 
faith  and  not  by  sight.  The  leadership  of  prophet  gives 
way  perforce  to  that  of  Messiah  and  Son  of  Man,  and 
this  again  gives  way,  because  God  willed  it  so.  God, 
who  controls  both  outward  event  and  inward  prompting, 
God,  I  say,  sent  defeat;  and  sent  also  the  eternal,  un- 
seen power  that  surges  through  generations  of  longing, 
aspiring  human  hearts  winning  them  to  the  Father. 
The  leadership  of  a  national  Christ,  yes,  even  of  a  uni- 
versalized Son  of  Man,  gave  way.  It  was  not  this  ideal 
that  won  the  homage  of  the  world,  but  that  of  a  priest- 
king  of  all  humanity. 

There  is  no  standing  still  in  the  career  of  Jesus.  His 
last  and  greatest  defeat  is  the  signal  for  an  advance  that 


52  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

carries  him  to  the  final  goal  of  human  religious  need. 

When  he  parts  from  the  Twelve  it  is  not  to  leave  them 

downcast,  but  as  men  that  stand  gazing  up  into  Heaven, 

beholding  there,  as  Stephen  did,  their  Advocate  with 

God.     Is  it  any  wonder  that  when  their  faith  returns 

it  is  to  recognize  him  in  the  breaking  of  the  bread ;  and 

not  as  a  mere  ghost,  not  as  a  mortal  returned  again  to 

earth,  but  as  "  one  that  liveth  and  was  dead  and  behold 

he  is  alive  for  evermore,  and  hath  the  keys  of  death  and 

hell."     Paul's  gospel  does  not  indeed  go  back  to  Galilee. 

But  would  you  expect  it  to  ?     The  gospel  of  Jesus  had 

moved    forward    since    then,    to    become    what    Paul 

preaches,  a  gospel  of  personal  redemption,  a  "  gospel 

of  the  Reconciliation,  how  that  God  by  the  agency  of 

Christ  was  restoring  a  guilty  world  to  His  favor, ^^  not 

imputing  unto  men  their  trespasses." 

15  Only  a  historical  study  of  the  word  "  reconcile " 
(KaraWaffafLv) ,  especially  of  its  occurrence  in  Jewish  literature 
of  Paul's  time  and  later  (in  the  religious  sense  it  does  not  occur 
before  the  Maccabean  period),  will  dispel  the  false  impression 
made  by  modern  renderings  of  the  passage  above  quoted.  As 
Thayer's  Lexicon  makes  unmistakably  clear,  it  does  not  mean 
merely  "  dispel  enmity,"  as  if  it  were  a  hostile  feeling  on  the 
world's  part  which  required  to  be  removed ;  but  "  restore  to 
favor,"  and  the  succeeding  clause  "  not  imputing  to  men  their 
trespasses  "  shows  that  such  is  here  the  sense.  God,  through  the 
agency  of  Christ,  was  restoring  an  unworthy  world  to  His  favor. 


LECTURE  III 

THE    TEANSFIGUEATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL 

1.  The  Apostleship  not  from  Man 

The  preceding  lecture  was  really  an  attempt  to  take 
position  at  the  vantage  point  of  Paul,  and  look  back 
(though  with  other  eyes  than  his)  at  the  career  of  Jesus, 
then  unrecorded  save  for  the  ordinance  of  the  memorial 
Supper  and  the  answering  rite  of  self-dedication  by 
baptism  into  his  name.  To-day  we  ask  how  it  comes 
to  pass  that  Paul's  view  is  so  different  from  ours.  He 
continues  Jesus'  work;  but  admittedly  it  is  a  trans- 
figured gospel. 

We  have  seen  that  even  before  Jesus  took  up  the  in- 
terrupted work  of  John  the  Baptist  the  movement  could 
properly  be  called  a  "  gospel  of  reconciliation,"  though 
of  course  in  a  quite  different  sense  from  Paul's.  It  was 
a  national  movement  —  a  movement  in  the  spirit  and 
power  of  Elijah  to  "  turn  the  heart  of  Israel  back 
again."  By  repentance  and  faith  the  children  would 
be  turned  to  the  Father,  and  the  Father  to  the  children. 
God's  anger,  so  manifest  in  the  evil  case  of  his  people, 
would  be  appeased  before  it  brake  forth  into  wrath, 
and  the  long-awaited  forgiveness  and  salvation  would 
appear.  As  the  author  of  the  Second  Source  puts  it, 
John  came  "  bringing  a  way  of  justification  "  which  the 
publicans  and  harlots  entered  by  repentance  and  faith, 
though  the  Pharisees  held  aloof.  ^     That  which  began 

1  See  the  article  "  John  as  Preacher  of  Justification  by  Faith  " 
in  Expositor  VIII,  93  (Sept.,  1918). 

53 


54  JESUS    AND    PAUL. 

as  a  national  movement  became  more  and  more  indi- 
vidual. By  force  of  adverse  circumstance,  or,  if  you 
choose  to  put  it  so,  by  tlie  providence  of  God,  Jesus' 
direction  of  this  upheaval  of  reawakened  prophecy  was 
forced  more  and  more  into  channels  of  individual  and 
personal  religion.  With  his  death  it  transcended  the 
limits  of  mortality  as  it  had  previously  transcended 
those  of  mere  nationality.  In  the  end  the  supreme  ex- 
pression of  his  gospel  became  the  symbolic  utterance 
of  the  Sacrament.  Having  loved  his  own  he  loved  them 
to  the  end,  and  made  the  fate  he  would  not  seek  to 
escape  a  ground  of  appeal  to  God  on  their  behalf.  Bap- 
tism, adopted  almost  at  once  by  his  followers  upon  the 
reawakening  of  their  faith,  was  an  answering  self-dedi- 
cation in  penitent  loyalty  to  the  risen  Lord. 

Thus  Christianity,  as  Saul  the  persecutor  first  came 
in  contact  with  it,  was  more  than  a  reform.  It  was 
almost  a  new  religion.  Saul,  at  least,  refused  to  recog- 
nize it  as  any  longer  within  the  pale  of  Judaism,  and 
priests  and  scribes  agreed  with  him.  This  new  religion 
found  expression  for  its  essential  meaning  in  its  two 
observances,  and  as  yet  had  found  no  other  utterance. 
It  was  a  gospel  of  "  grace,"  the  renewed  "  favor "  of 
God  obtained  by  the  martyrdom  and  intercession  of  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ.  What  the  law  had  not  been  able  to 
do  through  all  the  long  struggle  of  Synagogue  leaders 
with  popular  frailty  had  (in  Christian  belief)  been  at 
last  accomplished.  God  had  been  reconciled  to  a  peni- 
tent, believing  people.  The  proof  of  it  was  already 
patent  in  Jesus'  time.  Together  with  his  message  of 
forgiveness  to  the  penitent  had  come  the  power  of  God 
to  heal.  The  inquirers  from  John  could  report  what 
they  had  seen  and  heard.  In  view  of  these  "  powers  " 
of  the  Spirit  Jesus  could  denounce  the  opposition  of  the 
scribes  as  impious  and  declare  the  Kingdom  poten- 
tially already  begim.     Even  gi-eater  works  followed  the 


THE    TEANSFIGUKATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL  55 

resurrection.  The  Spirit  of  adoption  moved  the  vo- 
taries of  the  Crucified  to  cry,  "  Abba,  Father,"  in  mani- 
festations which  were  taken  as  the  fulfillment  of  the 
promise  of  the  "  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  in  the  last 
days."  There  had  been  progress,  therefore,  from  the 
Baptism  of  John  to  the  Baptism  of  the  Spirit.  There 
had  been  both  intensification  of  the  message  and  change 
in  its  nature ;  and  the  new  brotherhood  would  have  been 
the  last  to  deny  it.  They  rather  gloried  in  it.  The 
water  of  the  Jews'  manner  of  purifying  had  been 
changed  into  wine. 

The  change  was  analogous  to  that  which  came  over 
prophecy  with  the  extinction  of  the  national  political 
life.  Apocalypse  is  prophecy  universalized  and  tran- 
scendentalized.  It  is  also  individualized.  With  the 
death  of  Jesus  something  similar  was  seen  to  have  taken 
place  in  his  gospel.  Defeated  on  earth  it  had  taken 
refuge  in  heaven.  Rejected  as  a  program  for  the  na- 
tion, it  had  become  universal,  offering  an  ideal  for  the 
individual  lost  son,  were  he  Jew  or  Gentile.  The  gos- 
pel was  transfigTired.  Old  things  were  passed  away; 
behold  all  had  become  new. 

We  have  to-day  a  group  of  religious  leaders  in  whom 
the  prophetic,  ethical  motive  predominates  over  the 
mystical  and  sacerdotal.  These  raise  the  cry:  "We 
have  had  too  much  of  Paul,  too  much  of  individual  sal- 
vation. Social  salvation  is  the  need  of  our  times. 
Back  to  Jesus  and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount !  "  An- 
other group  follow  the  opposite  tendency,  denying  the 
very  existence  of  a  historical  Jesus,  and  assuring  us  that 
all  the  religious  values  of  Christianity  are  to  be  found 
in  the  idea  of  the  dying  and  rising  liedeemer-God  com- 
mon to  the  mystery  religions  of  the  time.  The  latter 
tendency  curiously  recalls  the  teaching  of  Marcion, 
Cerinthus,  and  the  Docetic  Gnostics.     These  found  no 


56  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

difficulty  with  a  Christ-emanation  assuming  temporary 
embodiment  in  Jesus  (or  indeed  any  other  avatar). 
Individual  fellowship  with  this  divine  Being  insured 
immortality.  What  they  could  not  tolerate  was  a  real, 
flesh  and  blood  Leader,  a  High  priest  and  King  of  hu- 
manity. But  surely  the  mythical  interpretation  of  the 
gospel  record  has  little  to  contribute  to  the  science  of 
religion.  Science  of  any  kind  must  deal  with  objective 
historic  fact.  The  larger  its  basis  in  concrete  reality 
the  better.  A  science  of  mythology  is  possible;  but  a 
record  of  life  in  real  moral  union  with  the  Father  in 
Heaven  is  a  better  basis  for  the  scientific  student  of 
religion,  as  well  as  for  the  convert. 

What  primitive  Christianity  rejoiced  in  as  an  accom- 
plished fact  was  "  access  for  Jew  and  Gentile  in  one  new 
Spirit  unto  the  common  Father."  That  consciousness 
and  its  basis  of  historic  fact  should  be  the  province  of 
our  study.  But  present-day  enquiry  seems  largely 
taken  up  with  reaction  against  what  is  termed  the 
"  theologizing  "  gospel  of  Paul,  resenting  his  emphasis 
upon  personal  redemption  and  the  life  of  the  individual 
soul  "  in  God."  The  cry  is :  "  Back  to  Galilee,  with 
its  simple  ethics  of  brotherhood,  and  its  social  goal  of  a 
commonwealth  of  humanity." 

We  have  many  brilliant  scholars  (I  have  already 
mentioned  Arnold  Meyer  of  Ziirich,  and  might  now  add 
the  lamented  William  Wrede)^  in  whose  view  the  new 
faith  incurred  a  loss  that  quite  outweighed  the  gain 
when  it  secured  as  its  chief  interpreter  to  the  Greek- 
speaking  world  Saul  of  Tarsus,  the  converted  scribe  and 
sanhedrist.  Back  to  Jesus,  is  the  cry.  Back  to  the 
simple  doctrine  of  the  Prophet  of  Nazareth.  Genuine 
Christianity  is  the  monotheistic  humanitarianism  of  the 
prophets  stripped  of  its  temporal  and  racial  limitations. 

2  See  also  H.  Mackintosh,  Natural  History  of  the  Christian  Re- 
ligion.    1894. 


THE    TRANSFIGURATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL  57 

Well,  SO  it  is ;  stripped  not  by  academic  analysis,  but 
by  the  mightier  logic  of  events  and  the  movement  of 
world  history;  or  rather  reclothed  in  new  and  higher 
forms.     Prophecy  was  universalized  in  Apocalypse,  and 
Apocalypse  was  stripped  of  its  temporal  and  racial  limi- 
tations by  the  progress  of  events.     When  the  expected 
cataclysm  failed  to  materialize  the  Hellenizing  inter- 
pretation of  the  Johannine  eschatology  took  its  place  in 
the  Church.     Back  to  Jesus  ?     Yes.     But  Jesus  did  not 
stand  still.     He  was  a  Prophet  in  Galilee.     He  was  a 
Son  of  David  and  Son  of  Man  in  the  appeal  to  Jerusa- 
lem.    He  was  a  Mediator  and  Intercessor  with  God 
when  he  passed  within  the  veil  of  the  temple  not  built 
with  hands.     Paul  is  our  earliest  witness,  and  Paul  has 
already  determined  to  know  no  Christ  save  a  Christ  not 
after  the  flesh.     Had  he  done  otherwise  Christianity 
would  not  have  survived  his  generation.     If  it  be  a 
question  of  words  and  names  and  book  authority,  and 
our  alternative  is  to  swear  either  by  the  words  of  the 
Master  or  those  of  the  disciple,  then  by  all  means  let 
us  take  those  of  the  Master  —  if  we  can  be  sure  of  them. 
But  if  our  teacher  is  to  be  the  eternal  Logos  of  God, 
who  leads  into  all  truth, —  if  it  is  the  Creator  Spiritus 
of  the  cosmos  of  soul-life  who  is  to  take  of  the  things  of 
Christ  and  interpret  them  to  us,  then  we  shall  need  to 
take  a  leaf  from  the  book  of  Paul  and  of  the  great 
Ephesian  evangelist,  learning  to  look  at  things  "  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  Eternal."     Then,  perhaps,  we 
may  recognize  the  directing,  controlling  guidance  of  a 
Power  that  works  in  and  through  and  above  the  currents 
of  man's  religious  instinct,  and  most  of  all  in  the  person 
of  its  supreme  leaders  such  as  Jesus  and  Paul.     To  the 
martyr  Ignatius  that  Logos  of  God  was  an  inward  voice 
crying :     "  Come  to  the  Father."     To  Augustine  it  pro- 
claimed the  same  message.     To  Jesus  and  Paul  alike 
it  was,  as  we  have  seen,  above  and  beyond  all  else  an 


58  JESUS    AND    PAUL. 

appeal  to  lost  sons,  "  Be  ye  reconciled  to  God."  But 
Jesus  and  Paul  do  not  claim  to  speak  for  themselves. 
We  learn  most  from  them  when  we  take  action  and  ut- 
terance alike  as  expressions  of  the  divine  purpose  to 
which  they  were  dedicated  in  every  power.  The  Christ 
whom  Paul  preaches  is  great  only  as  the  agent  of  God, 
and  Paul  asks  no  more  for  himself  than  to  be  accepted 
as  the  dedicated  agent  of  this  agent.  The  Christ  of  the 
fourth  evangelist  sums  it  up  in  the  cry  of  Jesus  as  he 
leaves  his  public  ministry :  "  He  that  believeth  in  me 
believeth  not  in  me,  but  in  Him  that  sent  me." 

I  have  tried  to  indicate  something  of  the  movement  of 
this  religious  tendency  impelling  men  from  within  to- 
ward the  Father  in  Heaven,  guided  from  without  by 
the  discipline  of  circumstance.  I  have  tried  to  view  it 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  historian  of  religion,  sur- 
veying that  greatest  of  all  periods,  the  transition  from 
Jesus  to  Paul,  seeking  to  identify  the  thread  of  real 
continuity.  The  disciple  clothes  the  message  of  the 
Master  in  the  forms  of  the  Hellenistic  religions  of  per- 
sonal redemption  whose  atmosphere  had  surrounded  him 
from  boyhood,  and  whose  phraseology  was  current  coin 
with  the  Gentile  world  to  which  he  preached.  If  he 
has  thus  obscured  it  only,  then  our  etlort  should  be 
limited  to  removing  the  disguise.  The  Pauline  Epis- 
tles will  be  useful  mainly  as  approaches  to  the  Synoptic 
tradition,  woefully  meager  in  their  few  grains  of  gold 
overlaid  by  tons  of  gravel  and  chiy.  If,  contrariwise, 
the  genius  of  the  Hebrew  faith  has  triumphed  in  this 
case  as  in  earlier  contacts  with  Gentile  religion,  ab- 
sorbing and  assimilating,  but  not  itself  absorbed, —  if 
Paul  makes  use  (as  he  demonstrably  did)  not  only  of 
the  phraseology,  but  also  of  the  ideas  of  Hellenistic  re- 
ligion to  convey  the  essential  message  that  was  given 
him  "  from  the  Lord,"  and  yet  took  over  nothing  which 
could  not  be  controlled  and  vitalized  by  it,  then  he  uses 


THE    TRANSFIGURATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL  59 

the  Greek  forms  of  thought  as  he  uses  the  Greek  lan- 
guage; and  the  only  question  is  as  to  the  literalness  of 
his  translation.  If  we  understand  from  study  of  the 
Hellenistic  faiths  their  language  and  mode  of  thought, 
we  shall  recognize  behind  the  Greek  dress  the  vital  idea 
which  Paul  laid  hold  upon  because  it  had  fundamental 
value,  and  was  in  truth  germane  to  his  own.  Still  we 
must  also  look  for  difference  and  advance.  The  mes- 
sage which  Paul  took  up  was  not  that  of  the  Prophet  of 
Galilee.  It  offered  no  nationalistic  Christ,  "  a  Christ 
according  to  the  flesh,"  nor  even  "  thrones  of  the  house 
of  David."  It  had  almost  ceased  to  be  apocalyptic. 
Paul  does  not  mention  the  title  Son  of  Man,  and  his 
equivalent,  if  he  has  one,  is  a  still  more  universalized 
abstraction.  His  Christ  had  been,  to  be  sure,  "  of  the 
seed  of  David  " ;  but  that  was  only  "  as  concerning  the 
flesh,"  a  consequence  of  historical  circumstance,  just 
as  he  had  become  a  minister  of  the  circumcision  to  fulfill 
the  promises  made  to  the  fathers.  Paul's  Christ  is  es- 
sentially the  Suffering  Servant  of  Isaiah,  exalted  "  to 
make  intercession  for  sin."  He  is  the  fulfiller  of  the 
mission  of  Israel,  a  righteous  though  suffering  Servant, 
who  by  his  knowledge  brings  the  godless  world  to  justi- 
fication. It  was  the  resurrection  from  the  dead  which 
by  miraculous  power  had  demonstrated  the  Crucified  to 
be  the  Son  of  God.  Thus  the  "  glad  tidings  of  recon- 
ciliation "  was  no  Pauline  novelty.  It  was  the  general 
and  common  gospel.  But  Paul  took  it  up  at  the  point 
where  it  had  reached  its  supreme  and  ultimate  form  as 
an  expiation  for  the  sin  of  the  world  by  the  blood  and 
intercession  of  its  predestined  King;  whereas  his  prede- 
cessors could  remember  the  preaching  in  Galilee.  The 
difference  is  in  degree  of  individualization.  Paul  does 
not  speak  of  the  restoration  of  Israel  to  the  favor  of 
Jehovah.  He  does  not  say  "  Christ,  who  loved  his  peo- 
ple, and  gave  himself  up  for  the  national  hope."     Only 


60  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

once  does  he  say  "  who  loved  the  Church,  and  gave  him- 
self up  for  it."  His  most  characteristic  utterance  is 
"  Who  loved  me,  and  gave  himself  for  rtie."  And  in- 
dividualization is  universalization.  A  gospel  for  the 
world  must  be  "  the  word  of  the  cross." 

To  Philo  Moses  was  the  "  mediator  and  reconciler  of 
the  world."  He  is  identified  by  later  Jewish  teachers 
with  the  Servant  of  Jehovah,  because  he  not  only 
brought  the  knowledge  of  Jehovah's  will,  but  sought 
forgiveness  for  Israel  at  the  cost  of  his  own  share  in 
the  book  of  life.  Philo  and  the  rabbis  differ  only  in  the 
breadth  of  their  horizon.  The  Servant  is  for  Paul  an- 
other, a  prophet  like  unto  Moses  in  the  knowledge  of 
God's  will,  but  chiefly  one  whom  God  had  "  highly  ex- 
alted "  because  he  had  humbled  himself  and  become 
obedient  unto  death.  This  exalted  One  is  now  Paul's 
Advocate  with  the  Father  against  the  great  Accuser. 
He  is  fulfilling  his  promise  to  confess  his  loyal  ones  in 
the  presence  of  God.  He  has  become  an  Intercessor 
for  Paul's  forgiveness,  as  the  Spirit  on  earth  also 
maketh  intercession  with  groanings  intelligible  only  to 
God.  This,  for  Paul,  is  the  supreme  meaning  of  the 
resurrection.  "  He  was  raised  for  our  justification." 
"  If  Christ  be  not  raised  we  are  of  all  men  most  miser- 
able," because  we  are  "  yet  in  our  sins."  We  have 
neither  Advocate  nor  Intercessor  at  the  judgment-seat, 
and  we  go  as  conscious  transgressors  of  the  law.  Con- 
trariwise, if  God  has  raised  him  from  the  dead,  and 
given  assurance  of  it  to  all  men  by  demonstration  of 
the  Spirit  and  power.  He  thereby  commends  His  own 
love  to  us,  in  that  while  we  were  yet  sinners  this  Christ 
should  have  died  for  us.  If  you  apply  the  story  of 
Jesus  in  terms  of  personal  religion  you  cannot  avoid 
making  it  both  universal  and  transcendental.  Calvary 
itself  becomes  a  scene  whose  supreme  actor  is  not  on 
earth.     It  is  God  himself  who  there  set  forth  Jesus  in 


THE   TEANSFIGHRATION   OF   THE   GOSPEI.  61 

his  blood  as  a  propitiation  ^  through  faith.  It  demon- 
strates His  own  righteousness,  in  spite  of  His  forbear- 
ance in  the  passing  over  of  sin  in  the  past.  For  if  a 
man  have  that  self-dedicating  faith  in  Jesus  which  is 
betokened  in  baptism,  God  is  not  unjust  if  He  treat  him 
as  just,  forgiving  his  sin  freely,  for  Jesus'  sake.  We 
are  accustomed,  I  know,  to  a  most  un-oriental,  forensic, 
almost  mechanical  conception  of  divine  justice,  by  which 
the  law  has,  as  it  were,  rights  of  its  own,  which  God 
himself  may  not  disregard.  But  to  the  Jews  God 
would  be  most  unjust  if  He  did  not  forgive  and  forth- 
with treat  as  just  any  truly  repentant  sinner.  That  is 
what  the  psalmists  and  Isaiah  mean  by  "  justification  " 
(zedeJc).  A  better  translation  in  most  cases  would  be 
simply  "  forgiveness."  That  is  the  meaning  when  the 
Psalmist  says :  "  He  shall  bring  forth  thy  righteous- 
ness (i.  e.,  forgiveness,  "  justification  ")  as  the  light, 
and  thy  judgment  as  the  noon-day."  Israel's  restora- 
tion to  Jehovah's  favor  shall  be  as  public  as  her  repudi- 
ation had  been.  That  is  what  Isaiah  means  by  saying 
Jehovah's  "  righteousness  "  is  near  to  come,  and  com- 
paring it  to  his  breastplate  which  he  puts  on  when  he 
comes  to  the  rescue  of  his  people  along  with  the  helmet 
of  his  salvation.  Both  the  "  forgiveness  "  and  the  "  sal- 
vation "  are  from,  not  for  Jehovah.  The  mere  term 
"  justification  "  or  "  righteousness  "  (BiKaLoavvrj)  instead 
of  "  forgiveness  "  in  the  Pauline  Epistles  may  be  "  theo- 
logical," if  you  will ;  but  it  is  purely  Isaian,  like  the 
figure  of  the  Servant  which  gives  Paul  his  ideal  of 
Jesus.  It  belongs  to  the  "  gospel  "  (another  Isaian 
word)  which  he  tells  us  he  "  received  "  when  he  became 
a  Christian,  the  assurance  "  that  Christ  died  for  our 

3  The  word  IXaarripiov  in  Rom.  3 :  25  may  be  masculine  or  neuter. 
In  either  case  its  sense  is  best  determined  from  the  parallel  in 
IV  Mace.  17:  22.  "Through  the  blood  of  those  pious  men  and 
the  propitiation  (IXacTTTiplov)  of  their  death,  divine  Providence 
saved  Israel  that  had  before  been  ill-treated." 


62  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

sins  according  to  the  Scriptures."  The  terms  are  bor- 
rowed (quite  naturally)  from  Isaiah,  the  prophet  of 
the  Reconciliation,  but  the  doctrine  was  not  embodied 
in  a  book  but  in  the  rite  which  proclaimed  from  the  be- 
ginning: ''This  is  my  blood  of  the  new  covenant 
which  is  shed  for  many."  When  Matthew  adds  to  this 
the  clause,  "  for  the  remission  of  sins,"  transposing  it 
from  its  connection  in  Mark  1 :  4  with  the  baptism  of 
John,  he  is  doing  no  violence  to  the  sense  in  which  the 
Church  observed  the  sacrament. 

2.  Conversion  of  Paul 

To  this  Pauline  gospel  of  "  justification  by  faith 
apart  from  works  of  law  "  we  must  devote  further  con- 
sideration at  a  later  time.  Our  first  concern  must  be 
with  what  has  justly  been  termed  the  new  beginning  of 
Christianity.  We  must  try  to  appreciate  in  its  full  sig- 
nificance the  story  of  the  conversion  of  the  persecutor; 
for  Paul  himself  rests  everything  on  this.  It  is  not 
merely  the  foundation  of  his  own  religious  life,  but  also 
of  his  call  to  preach  to  others.  His  Apostleship  and 
his  gospel,  denied  by  his  Judaizing  opponents,  are  de- 
fended by  him  in  common.  They  have  not  a  separate 
origin,  but  spring  together  out  of  the  same  religious 
experience. 

It  is  almost  a  commonplace  of  criticism  to  point  out 
the  supreme  importance  of  this  event.  Here  alone  do 
we  come  directly  in  contact  with  a  man  who  can  say: 
I  saw  the  risen  Christ.  Paul's  letters  are  the  only 
documents  that  really  authenticate  the  gospel  story. 
He  knew  personally  James  the  Lord's  brother  and  others 
who  had  followed  Jesus  in  Galilee.  He  had  heard 
Peter's  story  of  the  first  resurrection  appearance  from 
Peter's  own  lips  but  a  few  years  after  his  experience. 
And  Paul  is  at  the  same  time  the  founder  of  Gentile 
Christianity.     As  the  great  mountain  wall  behind  his 


THE    TRANSFIGURATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL,  63 

birthplace,  the  Taurus  range,  with  its  single  narrow 
opening,  the  Cilician  Gates,  divided,  for  antiquity,  the 
Greek-speaJ^ing,  European  world  from  the  Semitic;  so 
this  all-decisive  event,  the  conversion  of  Saul  of  Tarsus, 
stands  between  Christianity  in  the  form  known  to  us,  a 
Hellenized  oriental  faith,  and  the  primitive  belief  to 
which  Paul  looks  back.  For  he  implies  an  earlier  gos- 
pel common  to  both  when  he  reminds  Peter  at  Antioch 
of  their  common  religious  experience  and  its  meaning, 
or  tells  the  opponents  of  a  Jewish  type  of  resurrection 
doctrine  at  Corinth  what  sort  of  faith  had  been  preached 
by  all  the  witnesses  in  common  from  the  beginning.  If 
we  can  climb  to  the  summit  of  this  great  mountain-peak 
—  if  we  can  actually  lift  ourselves  in  a  real  sense  to 
Paul's  point  of  view,  we  may  be  able  to  connect  in  our 
minds  these  contrasted  modes  of  thought,  and  see  Chris- 
tianity as  a  progressive  whole,  a  movement  of  the  eter- 
nal Spirit,  a  work  of  the  redemptive  Wisdom  of  God 
ever  pleading  with  lost  sons  to  return  to  their  Father. 
The  two  accounts  which  come  down  to  us  of  Paul's 
conversion,  the  one  in  the  occasional  references  of  his 
own  letters,  the  other  in  Church  tradition  as  embodied 
in  the  Book  of  Acts,  are  strangely  different  in  motive 
and  point  of  view.  In  fact  the  almost  opposite  idea 
conceived  by  the  author  of  Acis  of  what  this  experience 
signified  to  Paul  as  regards  his  Apostleship  and  gospel 
is  the  chief  obstacle  to  acceptance  of  the  Lukan  author- 
ship. It  is  hard  to  believe  that  this-  Antiochian  his- 
torian of  Petrine  proclivities,  even  though  writing  at  a 
much  later  time,  can  be  the  same  individual  who  was 
closely  associated  with  Paul  during  the  decade  of  his 
life-and-death  struggle  to  vindicate  the  superhuman  au- 
thority of  his  apostolic  calling  and  the  complete  inde- 
pendence of  his  gospel.  Acts  leaves  no  stone  unturned 
to  prove  that  Paul  had  neither  work  among,  nor  apostle- 
ship to  the  Gentiles  until  after  the  martyrdom  of  James 


64  JESUS    AND   PAUl. 

the  brother  of  John,  twelve  years  after  the  crucifixion. 
Even  then,  according  to  Acts,  he  received  it  from  men 
and  through  men  at  Antioch,  after  the  Holy  Ghost  had 
signified :  "  Separate  unto  me  Barnabas  and  Saul  unto 
the  work  whereunto  I  have  called  them,"  Acts  is 
equally  eager  to  prove  that  Paul's  gospel  was  identical 
with  that  of  Peter,  a  gospel  which  he  had  ample  oppor- 
tunity of  learning  at  the  feet  of  the  Apostles  at  Jerusa- 
lem. For  according  to  x\cts  he  was  introduced  by  Bar- 
nabas almost  immediately  after  his  conversion  at  Da- 
mascus, and  began  his  work  among  them,  going  in  and 
out  among  them  until  his  preaching  to  the  Greek-speak- 
ing Jews  (not  Gentiles)  of  Jerusalem  was  interrupted 
by  the  mob.  In  both  representations  "  Luke  "  (as  we 
call  him)  verily  thinks  he  does  Paul  service.  He  can- 
not think  of  higher  praise  for  his  hero  than  to  tell  the 
story  in  a  way  to  prove  Paul's  dependence  on  those  who 
were  Apostles  before  him.  He  cannot  imagine  him 
"  turning  to  the  Gentiles  "  until  the  "  twelve  years  " 
tradition  accorded  to  Israel  have  expired,  and  even  then 
not  till  the  Jews  have  "  put  the  word  of  salvation  from 
them."  He  cannot  think  of  better  defense  for  Paul's 
gospel  than  to  identify  it  with  Peter's.  This  may  not 
be  quite  the  kind  of  corroboration  sought  by  Paley  in 
his  Horae  Paulinae,  but  as  matter  of  fact  it  is  of  im- 
mensely greater  value  to  the  student  than  if  "  Luke  " 
had  simply  gone  to  the  Epistles  and  copied  his  story 
from  them.  On  the  surface  the  differences  are  an  in- 
convenience. They  are  perplexing  to  the  critic,  and  a 
stone  of  stumbling  to  the  champion  of  tradition.  In 
reality  they  are  of  utmost  value.  They  are  what  paral- 
lax is  to  the  astronomer  who  attempts  to  measure  our 
distance  from  the  stars.  Without  them  we  should  have 
no  scientific  method  of  approach  at  all. 

Of  course  the  main  difference  between  the  two  bjc- 
counts  of  Paul's  conversion,  apart  from  motive,  is  the 


THE    TRANSFIGURATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL  65 

fact  that  "  Luke's  "  report  is  that  of  the  observer  from 
outside;  whereas  Paul  concerns  himself  only  with  the 
inner  meaning  of  his  experience.  "  Luke  "  tells  what 
it  meant  to  the  Church,  which  after  the  sudden  collapse 
of  the  campaign  of  bloody  persecution  "  had  rest." 
Paul  tells  what  it  meant  to  him.  Acts  describes  the 
persecutor  thrown  to  the  ground,  blind  and  helpless, 
until,  led  by  the  hand  into  Damascus,  humble  and  sub- 
missive, he  is  told  by  Ananias  what  he  must  do,  and 
receives  again  his  sight.  Its  narrative  might  almost 
be  derived  from  the  same  sources  as  that  which  the 
Ebionite  writer  of  the  Clementine  Homilies  puts  in  the 
mouth  of  Peter,  rebuking  the  Magus  who  falsely  claims 
to  be  an  Apostle  of  Jesus.  "  Can  a  man  be  qualified 
for  apostleship  by  mere  visions  ?  "  asks  Peter.  "  The 
Lord  did  no  doubt  appear  to  you  when  you  were  perse- 
cuting the  Church,  but  it  was  to  stop  you  on  your 
bloody  course,  as  when  the  angel  with  drawn  sword  ar- 
rested Balaam  as  he  was  seeking  to  curse  the  chosen 
people."  "  Luke  "  feels  no  call  to  explain  psychologi- 
cally how  it  was  possible  for  the  arch-persecutor  thus 
suddenly  to  espouse  the  faith  he  had  opposed,  aud  yet 
retain  the  deep  sincerity,  the  ardor  and  devotion  of  a 
Paul.  To  us,  contrariwise,  it  is  obvious  that  for  men- 
tal consistency  there  must  have  been  a  transition  in 
Paul's  case  from  a  condition  of  unstable  to  stable  equi- 
librium. Such  mere  physical  experiences  as  "  Luke  " 
narrates  could  not  have  had  this  effect  unless  in  some 
way  the  mind  had  been  prepared  in  advance.  Recover- 
ing consciousness  Paul  would  simply  have  said  to  him- 
self: "Paul,  thou  art  mad."  Or  else:  "What  if  a 
spirit  or  an  angel  hath  spoken  to  me.  Even  Satan 
fashioneth  himself  into  an  angel  of  light."  To  under- 
stand the  transition  we  must  somehow  account  for  the 
fact  that  the  soul  of  the  persecutor  suddenly  passes  from 
a  condition  of  strain  and  agony  sufficient  to  wring  from 


66  JESUS    AND    PATTT. 

him  the  cry,  "  O  wretched  man  that  I  am ;  who  shall 
deliver  me  from  this  body  of  death  ?  "  into  a  condition 
in  which  like  one  awaking  from  the  wild  ravings  of 
delirium  to  quiet  and  peace  he  whispers  in  hushed  tones 
of  gratitude :  "  I  thank  my  God,  through  Jesus  Christ 
our  Lord."  Paul  has  no  explanation  of  his  sudden 
change  save  "  the  good  pleasure  (euSo/cta)  of  God  " ;  but 
the  author  of  Varieties  of  Beligious  Experience  tells  us 
that  with  the  twice-born,  as  he  calls  them,  this  uncon- 
sciousness of  means  is  almost  the  normal  mark  of  con- 
version. 

Even  had  he  been  conscious  of  it  Paul  would  be  as 
far  as  "  Luke  "  from  any  design  of  telling  us  his  own 
part  in  this  death  and  resurrection  of  his  soul.  His 
aim,  like  "  Luke's,"  is  to  emphasize  God's  part  and 
minimize  his  own.  If  "  Luke  "  is  anxious  to  make  his 
readers  appreciate  how  wonderfully  God  interposed  to 
deliver  his  persecuted  people,  Paul  is  even  more  con- 
cerned to  prove  that  the  greatness  of  the  power  was  not 
of  men  but  of  God,  and  that  so  far  from  his  having 
planned  the  career  which  he  now  undertook,  or  having 
thought  out  the  gospel  that  now  came  to  him,  it  was,  on 
the  contrary,  at  the  utmost  remove  from  all  his  thoughts. 
He  was  not  tormented  with  growing  scruples  as  to  the 
rightfulness  of  his  bloody  course.  That  he  makes 
amply  clear. 

We  do  not  underestimate  the  agony  to  a  soul  like 
Paul's  of  dipping  his  hands  in  the  blood  of  men  like 
Stephen.  We  only  deny  that  the  pain  was  to  his  mind 
a  reason  for  desisting  from  his  course.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  more  it  cost  the  more  he  verily  believed  he 
did  God  service.  There  ivas  agony  of  soul.  There  was 
strain  and  stress,  up  to,  and  beyond  the  breaking  point. 
But  so  far  as  Paul's  conscious  thought  was  concerned  it 
was  not  impelling  him  toward  the  faith  of  his  victims. 
We  misinterpret  the  sense  of  the  proverb,  "  It  is  hard 


THE    TKA-NSFIGURATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL  67 

for  thee  to  kick  against  the  goad,"  if  we  take  it  to  refer 
to  remorse  of  conscience  experienced  by  the  wavering 
persecutor.  It  is  not  the  pain  suffered  by  the  restive 
ox  which  the  proverb  calls  to  mind,  but  the  futility  of  its 
lashing  out  against  the  driver.  Paul  makes  emphatic 
and  repeated  declarations  that  he  had  no  such  misgiv- 
ings. We  do  him  injustice  if  we  fail  to  see  that  the 
approach  to  the  crisis  was  subconscious.  On  the  other 
hand  without  such  subconscious  approach  the  psycho- 
logical overturn  is  inexplicable.  For  we  also  know 
from  many  a  narrative  of  sudden  conversion,  from 
Luther  to  modern  times,  how  easy  it  is  for  all  the  prepa- 
ration to  be  thus  made,  so  that  the  subject  seems  to  him- 
self suddenly  to  awake  a  new  man,  although  in  reality 
the  barriers  to  the  new  current  of  life  had  long  been 
secretly  undermined.  It  happens  then  as  when  the 
ocean,  which  for  months  and  years,  perhaps,  has  worked 
its  way  unobserved  beneath  the  dike,  in  a  moment  breaks 
through,  and  with  sudden  rush  sweeps  all  before  it. 

God  himself  respects  the  free-will  wherewith  he  has 
endowed  us.  He  does  violence  to  the  personality  of  no 
man,  not  even  the  persecutor.  In  Paul's  own  language 
we  work  out  our  own  salvation,  even  if  it  be  God  that 
works  in  us  both  to  will  and  to  do.  But  in  the  case  of 
his  own  conversion  it  is  God's  part  and  not  his  own  on 
which  all  his  attention  is  concentrated,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  it  is  this  which  his  opponents  denied.  It 
does  not  follow  that  there  were  no  human  antecedents. 
On  the  contrary  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  for  a 
right  understanding  of  the  divine  working  that  we 
search  out  to  the  limit  of  our  ability  the  human  channels 
through  which  the  divine  influences  flowed. 

It  is  more  or  less  habitual  with  those  who  hold  Paul 
responsible  for  sweeping  innovations  on  the  simple  gos- 
pel of  Jesus,  to  meet  the  psychological  objections  by 
saving :     "  Paul  as  a  Pharisee  had  alreadv  in  his  mind 


bo  JESUS   AND   PAUL 

the  elements  of  that  theological  system  which  we  find 
advanced  in  his  letters  as  the  gospel  of  justification  by 
faith.  All  that  was  needed  was  the  vision  on  the  road 
to  Damascus  to  make  him  ready  to  insert  the  figure  of 
the  crucified  ISTazarene  in  the  vacant  central  niche. 
Once  convinced  that  Jesus  whom  he  had  been  persecut- 
ing was  the  expected  Messiah,  all  the  rest  might  follow 
logically  in  his  mind." 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  deny  the  use  of  the  scribal  sys- 
tem of  thought  and  expression  by  Paul.  He  who  so 
freely  employs  those  of  the  Greek  religions  of  personal 
redemption  around  him,  in  spite  of  the  ineradicable 
Jewish  hatred  of  heathen  worship,  would  not  have  dis- 
carded the  teaching  of  Gamaliel  from  his  mind,  even 
had  he  been  able.  One  might  almost  say  that  in  Paul 
the  gospel  of  Jesus  has  undergone  a  double  translation, 
first  into  the  forms  of  thought  and  expression  which  be- 
long to  the  Jewish  rabbi,  then  a  second  time  into  those 
which  would  be  most  intelligible  to  his  heathen  converts. 
Nevertheless  the  vital,  organizing  factor  never  ceases 
to  be  what  Paul  himself  so  emphatically  declares  it. 
The  gospel  of  Jesus  is  not  absorbed  by,  or  assimilated 
to,  these  more  or  less  alien  forms  and  modes  of  expres- 
sion. The  reverse  is  true.  They  are  made  its  vehicle. 
It  is  for  us  to  distinguish  between  form  and  vital  sub- 
stance. 

Is  it  then  the  fact  that  Paul's  gospel  of  justification 
by  faith  in  a  glorified  Redeemer  is  an  innovation  upon 
the  gospel  of  Jesus  ?  Certainly  it  was  not  so  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  Paul;  and  (what  is  more  convincing)  it 
does  not  appear  to  have  been  so  to  Paul's  fellow-dis- 
ciples. For  even  the  Pillars  in  Jerusalem  make  no 
qualification  in  their  endorsement,  and  Peter  himself, 
when  publicly  taken  to  task  by  Paul  at  Antioch,  makes 
no  objection  to  Paul's  imputation  to  him  also  of  this 


THE    TRANSFIGUEATION    OF    THE    GOSPE!L  69 

very  same  gospel  of  justification  by  faith  in  the  Cruci- 
fied, apart  from  works  of  law.* 

The  fact  is  this  attempt  to  remove  a  psychological 
difficulty  by  appeal  to  the  supernatural  is  a  return  to 
the  old  vice  of  media3val  theology.  To  remove  one 
difficulty  we  create  a  greater  further  back.  If  we  make 
the  vision  responsible  for  the  transfer  to  Jesus  of  the 
attributes  of  Paul's  rabbinic  Messiah,  how  do  we  ac- 
count for  the  fact  that  Paul  had  such  a  vision  ?  In  the 
psychology  of  religious  experience  creative  miracles  do 
not  occur.  The  mind  operates  with  the  material  at  its 
disposal.  Even  the  most  catastrophic  revulsions,  such 
as  Paul's,  have  their  antecedents,  and  the  proof  that 
Paul's  vision  was  not  after  all  an  act  of  violence  to  his 
own  mind  and  personality,  and  did  not  introduce  new 
and  alien  factors  to  his  thought,  is  that  when  he  looks 
back  to  it,  and  before  it,  he  can  see  that  all  unknown 
to  himself  God  had  set  him  apart  from  his  mother's 
womb  for  this  very  thing,  and  directed  all  his  way  to  it. 
After  the  cataract  it  is  still  the  same  river  that  flows 
on,  but  in  deeper,  fuller  stream. 

The  key-note  to  Paul's  whole  life  is  the  antithesis  of 
"  Law  "  and  "  grace."  Before  his  conversion  he  sums 
up  as  it  were  in  his  own  person  the  whole  effort  of 
progressive  Judaism  since  the  time  of  Ezra.  He  was  a 
Pharisee  of  Pharisees  in  seeking  the  hope  of  Israel 
through  obedience  to  the  Law.  Since  the  return  from 
the  Exile  Israel  had  become  "  the  people  of  the  Book." 
Prophecy  had  come  to  mean  for  it  the  national  hope  of 
restoration  to  the  divine  favor  (SiKatoavvrj^  zedek, 
zedahah)  and  salvation,  God's  acknowledgment  of  them 
as  his  people  before  the  world.  The  law  was  the  means 
of  obtaining  this  divine  acknowledgment.  Since  Syna- 
gogue religion  had  taken  the  place  of  temple-worship  as 

4  Gal.  2:  1-10,  14-21. 


70  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

the  real  religion  of  the  people,  scribe  and  Pharisee  had 
labored  together  with  untiring,  marvelous  devotion  to 
make  ready  for  Jehovah  a  people  prepared  for  Him  by 
the  spirit  of  obedience.^  What  we  call  the  legalistic 
tendency  of  post-Maccabean  Judaism  was  epitomized 
in  Paul.  He  plunged  into  it  heart  and  soul  even  be- 
yond his  contemporaries.  And,  as  was  characteristic 
of  him,  he  applied  it  with  intense  individualism  first  of 
all  to  himself.  He  would  have  for  Israel  (but  to  begin 
with  for  himself)  a  "  righteousness,"  or,  as  we  might 
also  render,  "  a  justification  "  (SiKaLoavvq)  of  his  own, 
"even  thaf,  which  is  through  the  Law."  It  is  just  be- 
cause of  the  fact  that  Paul  perceived  more  keenly  than 
others  the  irrepressible  conflict  between  the  gospel  of 
forgiveness  to  penitent  sinners  preached  by  Jesus,  and 
the  ideal  of  obedience  cherished  by  scribe  and  Pharisee, 
that  he  became  a  leader  in  persecuting  the  Way  of  Jus- 
tification by  the  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  The  Phari- 
see's indignation  was  great  when  Jesus  appealed  to  his 
healings  to  confirm  his  message  of  forgiveness.  It  was 
accentuated  a  hundred  fold  when  the  followers  of  the 
ISTazarcne  began  to  advance  the  doctrine  of  expiation 
through  his  blood,  applying  to  his  self-dedication  to 
death  the  Isaian  prophecy  of  the  Suffering  Servant  for 
whose  sake  the  "  many  "  are  forgiven. 

Such  was  the  doctrine  of  "  justification  "  by  the  grace 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  *^  which  provoked  the  persecution  of 
Saul  of  Tarsus.  But  we  have  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
if  Saul  of  Tarsus  had  been  in  Jerusalem  or  Galilee  at 
the  time  of  Jesus'  ministry,  he  would  have  been  the 
conscientious  leader  of  the  scribal  opposition  to  the 
Friend  of  the  publicans  and  sinners,  just  as  he  was 
afterwards.  Paul  took  Pharisaism  seriously,  and  ap- 
plied it  remorselessly.     Hellenism  appears  only  in  the 

5  Cf.  Jubilees,  i,  24-26. 

6  Gal.  1:  16f.;  cf.  Acts  15:  8. 


THE    TRANSFIGURATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL  71 

fact  that  his  religion  is  personal  rather  than  national. 
Like  the  author  of  Jubilees  he  seeks  rightness  with  God 
as  the  supreme  end.  Only  he  is  more  intensely  indi- 
vidualistic and  sets  a  more  exacting  standard.  On  this 
basis  one  who  like  Paul  combines  clearness  of  vision 
with  ardor  of  soul  will  find  himself  inevitably  in  just 
the  impasse  which  Paul  describes  as  the  immediate  ante- 
cedent of  his  collapse.  The  Law  could  not  accomplish 
the  deliverance  expected  of  it,  "  in  that  it  was  weak 
through  the  flesh."  Paul  found  himself  no  better  than 
any  other  "  sinner  of  the  Gentiles,"  in  fact  his  very 
knowledge  of  the  law  made  his  condition  worse;  for 
instead  of  giving  him  victory  over  the  law  of  sin  which 
he  found  in  his  members,  warring  against  the  law  of  his 
mind,  it  seemed  rather  to  provoke  him  to  all  manner 
of  evil  concupiscence,  and  then  to  leave  him  more  than 
ever  the  object  of  the  wrath  of  God.  Thus  the  very 
ordinance  of  life  (for  such  is  inherently  the  purpose 
of  the  commandment)  becomes  to  a  mind  in  slavery  to 
the  untamable  propensities  of  the  flesh  a  savor  of  death 
unto  death. 

Can  we  imagine  any  other  issue  to  this  hopeless  con- 
flict of  soul  than  that  which  actually  took  place  ?  Yes, 
perhaps;  despair,  and  moral  death.  Despair  and 
death,  if  Paul  had  not  really  already  known  another 
"  Way."  If  he  had  not  all  this  time  been  clearer  than 
any  other  man  as  to  the  true  alternative.  If  he  had 
not  already  penetrated  to  the  very  heart  of  the  teaching 
of  Jesus  as  a  gospel  of  "  reconciliation  "  by  grace,  and 
the  loving-kindness  of  a  forgiving  God.  If  he  had  not 
witnessed,  not  once  but  often,  such  scenes  as  that  of 
Stephen  standing  before  his  judges  with  face  trans- 
figured like  an  angel's  as  he  looks  up  into  Heaven  and 
cries :  "  Behold,  I  see  the  Son  of  Man  standing  at  the 
right  hand  of  God,"  my  Advocate  with  Him.  But  the 
very  intensity  of  the  persecutor's  opposition  to  this  Way 


72  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

brought  the  alternative  the  more  vividly  before  his 
mind. 

If  such  were  the  antecedents  of  Paul's  religious  ex- 
perience, as  seen  from  his  own  inward  point  of  view  in- 
stead of  the  external  of  "  Luke/'  what  shall  we  say 
of  the  vision  itself  ?  He  saw  Jesus,  says  "  Luke,"  not 
in  shame  and  humiliation,  but  as  Stephen  saw  him,  as 
the  five  hundred  saw  him,  shining  in  the  glory  of  God, 
transfigured,  glorified.  Paul  also  says  as  much.  "  Am 
I  not  also  an  Apostle,"  he  demands  of  his  detractors, 
"  have  I  not  seen  Jesus  our  Lord  ?  "  He  saw  the  Lord 
intervening  to  defend  his  martyred  Church,  says  the 
external  observer,  as  the  angel  of  God  stood  in  the  way 
to  oppose  the  false  prophet  who  sought  to  curse  the 
people  of  God.  Paul  very  likely  might  not  have  denied 
this,  any  more  than  he  would  have  denied  the  place  and 
time,  as  he  drew  nigh  to  Damascus,^  or  perhaps  the 
experience  of  dazzling  light  followed  by  temporary 
blindness.  Of  course  the  vision  did  stop  the  persecu- 
tions. But  these  are  not  the  things  which  signify  to 
one  whose  inward  experience  had  been  such  as  Paul  de- 
scribes. He  saw  Jesus  as  Peter  had  seen  him  after  the 
utter  collapse  of  his  self-confidence,  after  the  denial  and 
the  bitter  tears,  after  the  promises  of  reciprocal  loyalty 
at  the  supper,  after  the  utterance :  "  Simon,  I  have 
prayed  for  thee,"  after  Gethsemane  and  Calvary. 
"  God,  who  energized  in  Peter,"  says  Paul,  "  unto  an 
apostleship  of  the  circumcision,  energized  in  me  also," 
when  it  was  His  good  pleasure  to  reveal  his  Son  to  me, 
"  unto  an  Apostleship  of  the  Gentiles." 

These  visions  of  Peter  and  Paul  were  not,  then,  dif- 
ferent in  kind,  but  in  all  essentials  the  same.  "  He 
appeared  first  to  Cephas,"  Paul  tells  us,  "  last  to  me." 
After  Peter  had  turned  again  and  stablished  his  breth- 
ren, the  visions  multiplied.  Many  experienced  the 
7  Gal.  1 :  17. 


THE    TBANSFIGIJEATION    OP    THE    GOSPEL  73 

opening  of  the  eyes  of  their  heart  to  see  what  had  be- 
come soul-reality  for  those  who  had  heard  and  remem- 
bered the  farewell  promise  of  Jesus.  And  Paul  does 
not  differentiate  his  experience  from  theirs.  On  the 
contrary  he  emphasizes  their  identity.  The  series 
which  constitutes  the  apostolic  witness  of  the  resurrec- 
tion, certified  to  by  Paul  to  the  Corinthians  as  not  his 
own  merely,  but  the  common  resurrection  gospel,  starts 
with  a  reference  to  the  Isaian  promise  of  forgiveness  for 
the  sake  of  the  martyred  Servant.  It  closes  with  Paul's 
own  experience,  which  thus  forms  part  of  the  group 
which  began  with  the  appearance  to  Peter.  Moreover 
the  substance  of  the  vision  is  essentially  the  same,  not 
merely  for  these  apostolic  witnesses,  but  even  in  the 
case  of  the  many  later  "  visions  and  revelations  of  the 
Lord."  As  in  the  vision  of  John  on  Patmos,  the  figure 
is  "  one  like  unto  a  Son  of  man  "  radiant  in  the  dazzling 
light  of  heavenly  glory.  And  if  the  symbols  of  victory 
over  man's  last  enemies  are  there  in  that  he  holds  the 
keys  of  death  and  of  Hades,  and  the  breath  of  his  mouth 
is  as  a  sharp  sword,  the  historic  origin  of  this  faith  is 
not  forgotten.  The  figure  is  also,  with  that  strange 
mixture  of  symbols  characteristic  of  the  book,  that  "  of 
a  lamb  as  it  had  been  slain  " ;  and  it  occupies  the  place 
of  the  Mediator  and  Intercessor  with  God,  it  is  "  stand- 
ing in  the  midst  of  the  throne." 

Paul  has  nothing  to  say  of  the  dazzling  light,  above 
the  brightness  of  the  noon-day,  which  Luke  describes 
as  blinding  the  persecutor;  but  he  has  a  reference  of 
sublime  beauty  and  majesty  to  the  "  light  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  glory  of  God  which  shone  upon  his  heart  in 
the  face  of  Jesus  Christ."  He  has  nothing  to  say  of 
that  aspect  of  the  vision  which  presents  the  risen  Son 
of  Man  in  the  attitude  of  defending  his  persecuted  flock, 
though  certainly  the  vision  did  have  this  effect  so  far 
as  the  Church  was  concerned.     The  risen  Christ  whom 


74  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

Paul  saw  was  "  highly  exalted,"  even  as  he  had  hum- 
bled himself  and  became  obedient  unto  the  death  of  the 
cross,  he  was  "  at  the  right  hand  of  God,"  expectant  till 
his  enemies  be  made  the  footstool  of  his  feet.  But  his 
office  and  occupation  there  is  "to  make  intercession  for 
us,"  to  be  our  Advocate  with  the  Father,  so  that  God 
may  justify,  no  matter  who  condemns;  for  Paul  is 
"  persuaded  that  neither  death  nor  life,  nor  angels  nor 
principalities  nor  powers,  can  separate  us  from  the  love 
of  God  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord."  ^ 

We  all  know  how  Paul  defends  his  God-given  apostle- 
ship  and  gospel  in  Galatiana  by  referring  his  detractors 
to  the  well  known  story  of  his  conversion.  It  was  true 
of  Paul,  as  of  the  humblest  evangelist,  that  his  supreme 
asset  was  his  religious  experience ;  and  he  told  it  in  the 
forms  which  he  found  best  adapted  to  bring  out  its  re- 
ligious values  to  his  hearers.  Unfortunately  those  who 
best  appreciate  the  vital  significance  of  these  first  chap- 
ters of  the  great  controversy  too  often  fail  to  follow  it 
through  to  the  triumphant  close  in  the  great  chapters  on 
the  ministry  of  the  new  covenant  in  II  Cor,  3-6,  where 
the  Apostle  sums  up  its  significance  for  the  repentant 
Church  restored  at  last  to  full  loyalty  to  its  founder  and 
"  father  in  Christ."  In  Galatians  Paul  speaks  for 
himself  individually.  At  Corinth  also  he  had  been 
obliged  to  fight  an  even  more  desperate  conflict  against 
Judaizing  opponents  of  his  gospel  and  deniers  of  his 
right  to  speak  in  behalf  of  Christ.  After  a  direct  af- 
front to  himself,  which  his  delegate  Timothy  had  proved 
unable  to  counteract,  Paul  had  despaired  of  bringing 
this  great  church  at  Corinth  back  to  its  allegiance.  At 
last,  in  Macedonia,  tidings  came  from  Titus,  his  second 
messenger,  telling  of  their  repentant  return.  Paul  will 
not  repeat  the  bitter  remonstrances  with  which  tliey  had 
compelled  him  to  vindicate  his  own  apostleship,  and 
8Cf.  II  Cor.  4:  6;  Phil.  2:  9-11;  Rom.  8:  33-34. 


THE    TRANSFIGURATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL  75 

prove  the  right  to  speak  with  autlioritv  which  should 
have  been  so  needless  in  their  case.  He  refrains  from 
the  mad  boasting  they  had  forced  upon  him,  but  he  will 
not  quit  the  field  without  a  clear  statement  of  the  terms 
of  peace ;  and  that  not  for  himself  only,  but  for  all  who 
claim  with  him  the  authority  belonging  to  ambassadors 
for  God.  Since  he  is  speaking  to  men  to  whom  the 
conceptions  of  the  mysteiy  religions  are  the  common- 
places of  religious  expression  it  should  cause  us  no  sur- 
prise that  he  uses  their  tei*minology.  He  uses  its  sym- 
bols to  depict  his  own  supreme  experience,  and  even 
thinks  of  his  owai  immortality  as  thus  achieved.  It 
comes  by  "  illumination  "  ((/)WTto-/u,os)  through  light  re- 
flected "  as  in  a  mirror  "  (eo-oTrrpov)  from  the  face  of 
the  glorified  Jesus,  who  is  the  "  image  "  (etKwv)  of  God. 
By  this  vision  of  the  glorified  One,  this  illumination 
of  the  gnosis  of  the  glory  of  God,  we  also,  he  says,  are 
"metamorphosed"  (fi.€Taixop(f>ovfie0a)  or  "  transfigured  " 
into  the  same  "  likeness."  In  this  assurance  of  immor- 
tality the  heralds  of  the  cross  convey  the  message  to 
others. 

This  is  the  very  vernacular  of  the  mystery  cults.  ISTo 
man  can  fail  to  recognize  it  who  has  any  familiarity 
with  the  current  ideas  of  the  religions  of  personal  re- 
demption concerning  assimilation  to  the  nature  of  the 
dying  and  rising  Savior-god  by  gazing  upon  his  image 

(^6€6Tri<i   8ta    Oea's^    or    eTTOTrrtas ;    Vergottuug    durch    GottCS- 

schau),  as  to  being  "transfigured"  into  the  same 
"  likeness,"  as  to  immortality  being  the  destiny  of  the 
"  reborn,"  and  the  like.  Paul  is  using  the  ideas,  and 
even  the  language  of  the  mysteries  to  compare  the  min- 
istry of  the  new  covenant  and  its  revelation  with  the 
revelation  to  Moses  and  the  ministry  of  the  old  covenant. 
But  it  is  his  own  experience  in  the  vision  of  the  risen 
Christ  which  he  translates  into  this  symbolic  language. 
And  he  is  describing  it  not  for  himself  alone,  but  treat- 


76  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

ing  it  as  typical  for  all  who  had  thus  been  made  am- 
bassadors for  God  and  witnesses  of  the  resurrection. 
It  goes  as  far  beyond  the  brief  glimpses  afforded  us  in 
Galatians,  as  Galatians  itself  goes  beyond  the  mere  ex- 
ternalities of  Acts  in  the  insight  it  gives  us  into  the 
basis  of  Paul's  religious  experience.  Study  of  the  be- 
ginnings of  the  great  controversy  over  Paul's  apostle- 
ship  in  Galatians  should  never  be  dissociated  from  its 
climax  and  close  in  II  Cor.  3-6. 

Time  will  not  allow  me  to  follow  in  detail  the  ma- 
jestic progress  of  the  thought  as  Paul  compares  his 
revelation  with  that  which  Moses  had  received,  still  less 
to  adduce  the  parallels  from  the  Hermetic  writings  and 
similar  sources  which  show  the  significance  which  it 
bears  to  him.^  I  will  only  remind  you  of  the  familiar 
story  of  Exodus,  how  Moses,  after  the  people's  sin,  goes 
up  to  intercede  on  their  behalf  with  God.  On  the 
height  of  Horeb  he  entreats  that  his  own  name  may  be 
blotted  from  God's  book  of  life,  if  only  Israel  may  be 
pardoned.  Last  of  all  he  prays :  "  I  beseech  thee, 
show  me  thy  glory."  To  that  the  answer  is  given: 
"  Thou  canst  not  see  my  face ;  for  no  man  shall  see  me 
and  live.  But  I  will  put  thee  in  a  cleft  of  the  rock,  and 
will  cause  my  glory  to  pass  before  thee."  Then,  as 
Moses  stands  hidden  in  the  cleft  of  the  rock,  Jehovah 
passes  by  and  a  voice  proclaims :  "  Jehovah,  a  God 
merciful  and  gracious,  forgiving  iniquity,  transgression 
and  sin."  And  as  Moses  descended  from  the  mount 
with  his  message  of  pardon  his  face  was  transfigured 
with  the  reflection  of  the  glory  of  God.  But  Paul  was 
not  the  first  to  think  of  this  reflected  glory  on  the  inter- 
cessor's face  as  preparing  him  for  immortality.  Per- 
haps it  may  help  us  to  appreciate  what  the  apostle  sees  in 

9  See  Kennedy,  St.  Paul  and  the  Mystery  Religions,  and  Morgan, 
Religion  and  Theology  of  Paul,  pp.  113-145. 


THE    TRANSFIGURATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL  77 

this  story  of  the  intercession  of  Moses,  and  his  revelation 
of  the  "  grace  "  and  mercy  of  the  forgiving  God,  if  we 
remember  that  to  the  orthodox  Jew  this  is  the  supreme 
instance  of  intercession  for  the  forgiveness  of  sin. 
It  is  the  Mosaic  gospel  of  the  "  reconciliation " 
(KaraXXayrj)  manifesting  the  "  grace  "  of  God  in  not  im- 
puting unto  the  people  their  trespasses.  Paul's  refer- 
ence to  the  passing  glory  on  the  face  of  Moses,  a  trans- 
figuration that  caused  him  to  put  a  veil  upon  his  face 
that  the  people  might  not  see  how  soon  it  was  gone,  may 
seem  strange  to  our  mode  of  thought.  If  so  it  may 
help  us  to  know  that  Philo,  thirty  years  before  this  time, 
had  already  advanced  the  doctrine  of  a  transfiguration 
of  Moses  through  his  intercourse  with  God  and  that 
Philo  also  makes  this  Moses'  preparation  for  immortal- 
ity. Describing  his  departure  into  Heaven  at  the  sum- 
mons  of   the   Father    ( /AcraK Ai^^ets   v-rro    Tov   Trarpds)    Philo 

declares  that  by  the  vision  of  God  Moses'  soul  and  body 
had  been  blended  into  a  single  new  substance,  an  im- 
mortal mind-substance  having  the  appearance  of  the 
sun.^^  It  is  not  in  the  words  of  Philo,  but  in  the 
mystic  language  of  the  mystery-religions  that  we  read 
in  Paul  of  the  gnosis  that  conveys  immortality  by  re- 
flecting the  image  of  the  glorified  Savior-god  on  the 
mirror  of  the  retina.  Paul  borrows  the  phraseology  of 
this  religious  mysticism  to  describe  the  experience  of 
new  creation  which  qualifies  for  the  ministry  of  the  new 
covenant.  Unlike  Moses  those  who  receive  this  min- 
istry have  no  veil  upon  their  face.  As  they  gaze  upon 
the  glorified  Master,  who  for  their  sakes  died  and  for 
their  sakes  was  raised  again  from  the  dead,  the  radiant 
figure  is  reflected  in  them  as  in  a  mirror.  As  the  retina 
forms  the  image  of  the  object  gazed  upon,  so  Christ  is 
"  formed  in  them."  They  are  progressively  "  trans- 
10  Vita  Mo8.  II,  39. 


78  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

formed  by  the  renewing  of  their  minds  "  in  preparation 
for  immortality,  they  are  "  transfigured  into  the  same 
image,  from  glory  to  glory." 

So  the  long  conflict  of  Paul  for  his  God-given  aposr 
tleship  comes  back  to  its  starting-point,  the  manifesta- 
tion of  the  Son  of  God  in  him,  even  as  he  had  been 
manifested  to  Peter  first  of  all.  Only  now  he  speaks 
not  merely  of  apostleship,  but  of  a  "  ministiy  "  of  the 
new  covenant  whose  revelation  surpasses  the  revelation 
to  Moses.  He  speaks  of  an  "  ambassadorship  "  of  the 
reconciliation;  for  in  it  both  he  and  all  his  fellow  wit- 
nesses of  the  resurrection  are  heralds  of  peace  to  the 
world.  He  speaks  of  an  immortality  for  which  we  were 
created  in  the  image  of  God.  For  that  same  God  who 
in  the  creation  commanded  the  light  to  shine  out  of 
darkness  had  made  a  new  creation ;  and  of  this  Paul  was 
made  a  "  witness "  when  the  God  that  "  forgiveth 
iniquity,  transgression  and  sin  "  shined  in  his  heart  to 
give  the  light  of  the  knowledge  of  this  his  gloiy  "  in 
the  face  of  Jesus  Christ." 


LECTUKE  IV 

THE   TRANSFIGURATION   OF   THE    GOSPEL    (Continued) 
II.    THE    MESSAGE    OF    THE    RECONCILIATION 

1.  Historical  Interpretation 

The  attempt  was  made  in  the  preceding  lecture  to 
show  from  Paul's  own  references  to  his  experience  in 
conversion  that  the  ordinary  way  of  reasoning  from  it 
almost  inverts  the  true  principles  of  religious  psychol- 
ogy. We  must  learn  to  look  upon  the  vision  as  effect 
rather  than  cause.  Paul  had  indeed  a  theory  of  sal- 
vation before  his  conversion.  But  the  vision  of  the 
glorified  Jesus  did  not  come  into  this  as  a  new,  inex- 
plicable datum  supplying  the  needed  deus  ex  machina. 
On  the  contrary  it  was  the  collapse  of  preconceived  ideaa 
which  brought  about  the  vision.  And  however  unex- 
pected to  him,  the  vision  was  by  no  means  without  its 
antecedents.  Of  these  the  most  obvious  are  two:  on 
the  one  side  an  utterly  unbearable  strain  upon  his  own 
soul  to  achieve  peace  with  God  through  obedience;  on 
the  other  the  testimony  of  men  who  like  Peter  had  found 
this  peace  through  the  gi-ace  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  There 
was  also  the  spectacle  of  men  such  as  Stephen  trans- 
figured by  the  vision  of  their  Advocate  with  the  Father. 
Paul's  knowledge  of  his  victims'  experience  uncon- 
sciously predisposed  him  to  repeat  it.'  At  his  convert 
sion  it  was  indeed  as  though  scales  had  fallen  from  his 
eyes,  so  sudden  was  the  change  from  darkness  to  light. 
But  this  does  not  mean  that  others,  conscious,  as  Paul 

was  not,  of  the  hopelessness  of  his  effort  to  achieve  the 

79 


80  JESUS    AND    PAUIi 

ideal  of  the  Pharisee,  might  not  have  foreseen  the  out- 
come. It  only  means  that  Paul  was  blind  to  it,  so  blind 
that  afterwards  he  stood  in  amazement  at  himself.  In 
fact  this  is  the  very  basis  of  his  conviction  of  the  divine 
origin  of  his  apostleship  and  his  gospel,  inseparable  as 
we  have  seen  them  to  be  in  his  thought,  that  they  were 
"  wrought  in  him,"  not  of  himself,  but  by  the  direct 
intervention  of  God. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  these  lectures  to  argue  for 
Paul's  idea  of  the  supernatural  method  of  the  divine 
action  in  his  case.  There  is  just  as  much  of  God  in  it  if 
the  process  turn  out  to  be  intelligible  under  known  psy- 
chological laws.  It  is  not  my  purpose  to  argue  for 
Paul's  theory  of  vicarious  suffering  and  piacular  atone- 
ment. It  seems  to  me  far  superior  to  the  mediaeval 
caricatures  which  are  supposed  to  represent  it  in  the 
later  theologies.  The  piacular  conception  entertained 
by  Paul  may  represent  only  a  transition  stage  in  our 
philosophy  of  religion.  I  do  not  aspire  to  be  a  theo- 
logian but  a  historian;  not  an  advocate,  but  an  inter- 
preter. Suppose  Paul  to  have  been  quite  wrong  as  to 
the  modus  operandi  of  the  divine  action  in  bringing 
him  to  the  knowledge  of  the  eternal  Son  of  God;  still 
he  was  brought  into  reconciliation  with  God,  and  it  was 
an  effect  beyond  his  own  capacity.  The  same  is  true 
of  piacular  atonement.  Suppose  that  the  spiritual  new 
creation  to  which  men  testify  would  be  otherwise  char- 
acterized by  the  technical  psychologist.  Men  speak  of 
it  as  an  experience  of  peace  with  God  and  of  participa- 
tion through  Jesus  in  the  eternal  life  and  eternal  ac- 
tivity of  God,  victory  over  evil  propensity,  victory  over 
fear,  victory  over  death.  This  may  not  be  put  in  proper 
philosophical  language  when  we  describe  it  as  "  recon- 
ciliation with  the  Father."  Still  the  peace,  the  new 
creation,  are  there.  Let  experts  in  the  psychology  of 
religion  use  their  own  terminology  in  explaining  it,  the 


THE    TKANSFIGUKATION    OF    THE    GOSPEl,  81 

point  is  it  exists.  Suppose  we  hold  strong  objections 
to  such  modes  of  conception  and  expression  as  Paul's 
when  he  says,  "  The  wrath  of  God  is  revealed  from 
heaven  against  all  ungodliness  and  unrighteousness  of 
men."  There  cannot  be  reasonable  objection  to  our 
finding  modes  of  expression  which  convey  the  essential 
idea  in  less  anthropomorphic  terms,  so  long  as  we  recog- 
nize that  there  is  a  real  idea,  a  real  experience,  an  ex- 
perience of  most  vital  importance  to  men  who  have  not 
peace  with  God,  nor  victory,  nor  joy  in  an  eternal  hu- 
man Christ,  We  are  studying  the  history  and  psy- 
chology of  religion,  in  particular  that  movement  of  the 
eternal  Wisdom  of  God  which  produced  Christianity. 
The  first  step  is  to  understand  the  witness.  After  that 
improve  on  his  mode  of  statement  of  his  experience  if 
you  will  —  and  can.  Fortunately  the  self-dedication 
of  the  worthiest  for  the  unworthy  is  not  yet  a  forgotten 
fact.  It  is  still  there  to  challenge  valuation  by  the 
theologian. 

In  Paul's  case  the  witness  tells  us  things  which  he 
has  seen  and  heard.  They  are  more  or  less  obscured 
by  that  process  of  double  translation  of  which  I  have 
spoken,  first  into  the  forms  of  thought  natural  to  a 
Jewish  rabbi,  second  into  those  current  in  the  Hellen- 
istic religions  for  the  benefit  of  Paul's  converts.  But 
we  surely  are  justified  both  by  his  explicit  testimony 
regarding  the  common  apostolic  teaching  antecedent  to 
his  own,  and  by  the  unchanging  principles  of  religious 
psychology,  in  maintaining  that  the  core  and  kernel  of 
this  common  gospel  was  salvation  by  the  gTace  of  the 
Lord  Jesus,  forgiveness  of  sin  obtained  by  his  atoning 
death  and  present  mediation,  triumphant  assurance  of 
the  hope  of  Israel  and  of  the  world  in  the  fact  that  God 
had  raised  him  from  the  dead  and  revealed  him  in  glory. 
I  have  admitted  that  the  Synoptic  Gospels  retain 
scarcely  a  trace  of  this  doctrine  of  redemption  by  the 


82  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

blood  of  the  martyred  Leader.  Their  pages  are  marked 
rather  by  a  strange  absence  of  the  Isaian  figure  of  the 
suffering  Servant,  exalted  "  to  make  intercession " 
which  is  so  fundamental  to  the  thought  of  Paul.  It  is 
only  in  Hebrews,  and  Revelation,  and  First  Peter,  and 
Clement  of  Rome,  and  the  most  ancient  liturgies  of  the 
Church,  that  we  find  this  central  doctrine  of  grace 
through  the  blood  of  the  cross  and  the  intercession  of 
the  risen  Mediator.  But  we  are  not  entitled  to  argue 
from  this  partial  silence  of  a  single  restricted  group,  of 
later  date,  that  the  Pauline  gospel  of  the  "  reconcilia- 
tion "  was  a  speculation  of  his  own,  a  peculiar  interpre- 
tation of  the  meaning  of  the  cross,  which  later  writers 
otherwise  so  diverse  as  the  authors  of  Hebrews  and  the 
Revelation  of  John  have  agreed  in  adopting  from  the 
Apostle  to  the  Gentiles.  On  the  contrary,  Paul  insists 
that  whether  it  were  himself,  or  Peter,  or  the  other 
Apostles,  this  was  the  common  faith ;  and  the  Sacra- 
ment bears  him  out.  Of  course  we  recognize  the  ex- 
travagances, obnoxious  to  both  ancient  and  modem 
thought,  so  apt  to  attach  to  this  primeval  doctrine  of 
blood-redemption.  We  know  how  easily  vicarious  suf- 
fering and  intercession  of  martyrs  and  saints  can  be 
misapplied  in  a  way  offensive  to  our  sense  of  the  right- 
eousness of  God,  and  dangerous  to  practical  morality. 
But  we  cannot  escape  the  historical  fact  that  Christi- 
anity as  a  religion  distinct  from  Judaism  did  originate 
in  this  belief.  The  statements  of  our  oldest  and  most 
authentic  documents  would  be  decisive  on  this  point, 
even  if  we  did  not  have  in  addition  the  assurance  just 
derived  from  our  review  of  Paul's  account  of  his  con- 
version, to  prove  that  the  issue  of  his  soul-conflict  was 
not  the  question  whether  the  crucified  Nazarene  did  or 
did  not  correspond  in  character  and  experience  with 
some  preconceived  messianic  ideal,  but  whether  the 
Pharisean  Way  of  obedience,  or  that  of  the  publicans 


THE    TKANSFIGURATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL  83 

and  sinners,  tlie  Way  of  forgiveness  of  sins  for  Jesus' 
sake,  the  Way  of  ''  grace,"  brought  peace  with  God. 
The  dispute  with  Peter  at  Antioch  proves  that  this  was 
the  heart  of  the  common  faith.  Paul's  own  religious 
experience  proves  it.  For  his  vision  was  not  an  acci- 
dent. It  repeats  in  its  most  essential  characteristics 
those  which  had  been  the  experience  of  men  who  were 
of  this  faith  before  him.  It  took  this  form  partly  be- 
cause there  was  no  other  way  out,  once  his  false  hope 
came  to  its  inevitable  collapse;  partly  because  the  vi- 
sions of  his  predecessors  had  taken  similar  form.  And 
the  similarity  of  form  is  not  a  mere  coincidence.  It 
was  suggested  by  the  parting  promises  of  Jesus.  Our 
business  is  first  to  appreciate  how  such  utterances  as 
those  of  the  last  supper  could  lead  to  the  mystical  ex- 
perience of  Peter  and  all  the  rest  who  "  saw  the  Lord," 
afterwards  to  express  if  we  can  in  philosophical  lan- 
guage the  precise  value  and  meaning  which  these  ex- 
periences continue  to  have  as  part  of  the  history  and 
psychology  of  progressive  religion. 

We  have  seen  already  that  there  is  a  real  continuity 
in  the  religious  movement  from  John  the  Baptist  to 
Paul,  and  that  while  the  sense  of  the  terms  is  less  per- 
sonal it  was  already  a  gospel  of  "  reconciliation  "  when 
John  brought  his  ''  way  of  justification  "  by  repentance 
and  faith.  It  is  our  undertaking  now  to  trace  what  we 
can  of  the  earlier  form  under  its  double  disguise  of  re- 
duction to  rabbinic  modes  of  thought,  and  retranslation 
into  those  of  Hellenistic  personal  religion.  Is  Paul's  14- 
gospel  the  same  fundamentally  as  the  gospel  of  Jesus? 

I  cannot  but  consider  that  all  attempts  hitherto  made 
to  set  forth  exactly  what  Paul's  gospel  was,  are  more  or 
less  vitiated  by  two  misapprehensions.  The  first  con- 
cerns its  source  or  derivation.  There  is  failure  to  ap- 
preciate in  its  full  significance  the  principle  I  have  al- 
ready expressed  in  the  statement  that  Christianity  was 


84  JESUS    AND    PAUL. 

to  Paul  the  Way  of  justification,  or  peace  with  God, 
which  he  saw  symbolized  in  the  two  primitive  observ- 
ances of  baptism  and  the  supper  —  or  (to  put  them  in 
a  more  logical  as  well  as  a  more  historical  order),  the 
supper,  and  baptism.  It  was  not  the  teachings  and 
miracles  which  we  find  related  in  the  Gospels,  since 
Paul  neither  possesses  these,  nor  even  seems  to  care  for 
their  story.  ^  Nevertheless  we  find  great  effort  expended 
by  scholars  to  enlarge  to  the  utmost  the  minimal  traces 
in  the  Epistles  of  acquaintance  with  the  teaching  of 
Jesus,  and  a  strong  disposition  to  assume  that  it  must 
have  played  a  much  larger  part  in  Paul's  preaching  than 
these  extremely  meager  references  suggest.  I  have  af- 
firmed on  the  contrary  that  Christianity  as  Paul  knew 
it  was  the  Way  characterized  by  these  two  observances, 
symbolizing  respectively  forgiveness  for  the  sake  of  the 
risen  Redeemer,  and  new  life  in  his  Spirit.  I  shall  at- 
tempt presently  to  illustrate  by  a  typical  instance  how 
great  a  difference  this  makes. 

Before  doing  so  let  me  venture  (presumptuously  per- 
haps) on  a  second  general  criticism  of  modern  interpre- 
tations of  Paul's  gospel.  This  concerns  its  simple  as 
against  its  elaborated  form.  As  I  read  such  intricate 
discussions  of  the  Pauline  system  of  thought,  or  the 
Pauline  theology,  as  Baur's  or  Pfleiderer's  or  Holtz- 
mann's,  or  those  of  countless  other  great  biblical  theo- 
logians, I  am  impressed  with  the  conviction  that  there 
is  a  failure  here  to  distinguish  between  (a)  the  pri- 
mary conception  which  Paul  repeatedly  and  emphati- 
cally declares  was  not  his  own;  and  (b)  the  apologetic, 
the  defense  which  he  personally  weaves  about  it  in  an- 
swer to  particular  opponents.     The  apologetic  in  the 

1  It  seems  to  be  regarded  almost  as  a  matter  of  course  that  "  the 
gospel  "  means  the  moral  and  religious  teachings  of  Jesus  in 
Galilee.  But  if  wo  take  the  term  in  Paul's  sense  as  "  the  power 
of  God  unto  salvation  "  what  is  the  teaching  of  experience?  Is  it 
the  moral  and  religious  teachings;  or  the  story  of  Calvary? 


THE    TRANSFIGURATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL  85 

nature  of  the  case  must  have  more  or  less  of  an  ad 
hominem  character.  The  gospel  must  have  been  simple 
and  general.  The  Pauline  gospel  and  the  Pauline 
apologetic,  therefore,  are  not  precisely  one  and  the  same 
thing;  and  if  we  go  to  Epistles  such  as  Galatians,  and 
still  more  Eomans,  which  are  defenses  of  Paul's  gospel 
against  certain  specific  accusations,  we  must  remember 
that  this  elaboration  is  not  quite  what  we  .should  read, 
if  it  were  not  that  Paul  was  being  accused  of  "  making 
Christ  a  minister  of  sin  "  by  his  doctrine  of  "  justifica- 
tion by  faith  apart  from  works  of  law,"  and  of  making 
God  unrighteous,  and  an  unjust  judge  of  the  world.  I 
shall  also  use  illustrative  examples  to  show  what  differ- 
ence it  may  make  when  we  duly  allow  for  this  fact ;  but 
let  me  first  indicate  something  of  what  may  be  implied 
in  Paul's  reminder  to  the  Corinthians  that  he  had  not 
brought  them  a  theology  as  his  message,  although  he 
could  have  done  so,  but  simply  "  the  word  of  the  cross," 
the  same  story  which  they  continued  to  "  proclaim  " 
(KarayyeXXere)  as  often  as  they  observed  the  sacrament, 
a  gospel  which  he  and  others  had  "  received." 

2.  Justijication  by  Faith 

All  authorities  will  agree  that  Paul's  way  of  salva- 
tion has  two  stages :  (1)  Justification,  by  which  is  meant 
not  making  men  just,  nor  even  making  them  out  to  be 
just  when  they  are  not;  but  simply  forgiving  them, 
treating  them  for  Christ's  sake  as  if  they  were  just. 
That  is  what  Luke  means  when  he  makes  Peter  say  in 
Acts  15:8:  "  But  we  believe  that  we  shall  be  saved 
by  the  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus."  (2)  There  is  Life  in 
the  Spirit,  or  sanctification ;  the  progressive  assimila- 
tion of  the  believer,  not  only  in  character,  but  even 
physically  (so  Paul  believes)  to  the  glorified  Lord. 
For  both  of  these  experiences  the  sole  requirement  is 
"  faith,"  a  term  which  is  admittedly  taken  from  the 


86  JESTJS  a;xd  patjl 

gospel  of  Jesus  in  Galilee,  but  whicli  Paul  is  said  to  use 
in  a  new  and  peculiar  sense.  My  contention  is  that 
these  two  great  Pauline  doctrines  reilect  the  sense  he 
finds  in  the  Supper  and  Baptism. 

The  term  "  justification "  sounds  formidable.  It 
rouses  at  once  the  apprehension  of  a  theology  instead  of 
a  gospel.  We  know  it  is  used  once  or  twice  in  the 
preaching  of  Jesus,  as  when  he  speaks  of  the  publican 
who  after  his  humble  prayer  "  God  be  merciful 
{IXaaOrfTL)  to  me  a  sinner  "  went  down  to  his  house  with 
better  hope  of  "  justification  "  than  the  Pharisee.  We 
know  that  Jesus  spoke  of  John  as  having  brought  to  the 
publicans  and  sinners  a  "  Way  of  justification  "  by  re- 
pentance and  faith,  and  in  these  connections  we  have 
no  difficulty  with  it.  We  know  it  means  the  simple 
doctrine  of  all  the  prophets  and  the  law,  that  God  for- 
gives the  penitent.  Deutero-Isaiah  the  proclaimer  of 
glad-tidings  of  restoration  to  exiled  Israel  constantly 
associates  the  terms  "  justification  "  (zedaha,  StKaioavvrj) 
and  "  salvation  "  in  the  sense  of  divine  vindication  and 
restoration.  Thus  in  the  Song  of  the  Suffering  Serv- 
ant it  is  predicted  that  the  Servant  will  "  justify  many," 
himself  "  bearing  their  iniquities."  We  understand,  of 
course,  that  "  justify  "  means  "  obtain  the  forgiveness 
of  their  sins."  When  the  poet  declares  that  this  comes 
through  the  Servant's  "  knowledge "  (i.  e.,  Israel's 
knowledge  of  God,  not  "  the  knowledge  of  himself,"  as 
the  margin  renders)  this  also  is  the  proper  function  of 
the  people  whom  God  makes  His  "  witnesses."  ^ 
Israel's  witness  for  God  and  intercession  with  God  bring 
this  "  justification  "  of  the  many.  It  is  thus  expressed 
in  the  Apocalypse  of  Baruch,  "  God  scattered  Israel 
among  the  nations  that  He  might  do  the  nations  good." 
In  the  prophet's  view  the  exiles  would  be  witnesses  for 
God  even  among  their  oppressors,  and  as  a  people  of 

2  Is.  43:  10. 


THE    TBANSFIGUKATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL  0/ 

"  priests  "  and  "  ministers  of  God  "  would  make  inter- 
cession for  them.  The  Gentiles  also  would  then  be 
"  treated  as  just."  It  does  not  seem  at  all  strange  to 
us  that  this  Isaian  poem  of  the  martyred  people  of  God 
should  have  been  taken  up  by  the  followers  of  Jesus 
almost  immediately  after  the  crucifixion  as  applying  to 
the  work  he  had  accomplished.  For  the  "  justifica- 
tion "  (8tKaiocrvvr])  and  "  salvation  "  which  Jehovah  is 
about  to  make  manifest  are  Isaiah's  great  theme.  They 
form  his  "  gospel  of  the  reconciliation  "  for  the  whole 
race  of  mankind.  If,  then,  the  disciples  believed  that 
Jesus  had  dedicated  his  body  and  blood  that  God  might 
be  "  reconciled  "  to  his  people  as  others  had  before  dedi- 
cated themselves,  and  even  "  given  their  bodies  to  be 
burned"  out  of  devotion  to  the  law — if  Jesus  had 
promised  to  make  intercession  on  their  behalf  at  the 
judgment  throne,  as  the  Isaian  Seiwant  makes  interces- 
sion for  transgressors,  why  should  they  not  so  apply  the 
song?  Indeed  we  have  seen  that  the  Targiim  of  the 
Synagogue  already  did  apply  it  to  the  Messiah. 

We  are  quite  able  to  understand  then,  how  Jesus 
should  occasionally,  and  the  Pauline  Christians  oftener, 
use  the  Isaian  term  "  justification "  as  equivalent  to 
forgiveness  at  the  tribunal  of  God.  We  can  understand 
how  Peter  and  the  rest  who  had  been  witnesses  of  Jesus' 
parting  act  of  self-dedication,  and  after  his  martyrdom 
compared  his  fate  with  that  of  the  suffering  Servant, 
should  be  convinced  (as  Paul  tells  us  they  even  then 
were)  "  that  he  died  for  our  sins  according  to  the  scrip- 
tures," even  if  in  Synoptic  tradition  no  other  trace  re- 
mains than  an  echo  here  and  there,  in  references  to  the 
cross  and  the  sacrament,  of  the  Isaian  phrase,  "  he 
justified  the  many,  bearing  their  iniquities." 

But  somehow  there  seems  to  be  a  difference  (and 
there  really  is  a  difference)  when  Paul  begins  to  speak 
about  individual  "  justification  by  faith,   apart  from 


88  JESUS    AND    PAUL. 

works  of  law."  Just  what  the  difference  is,  and  how  it 
comes  about,  we  may  perhaps  see  more  clearly  after  we 
have  considered  the  second  qualification  for  our  under- 
standing of  Paul's  expression.  Meantime  it  ought  to 
be  easily  apparent  that  the  thing  itself  of  which  he  is 
speaking  is  exactly  what  is  betokened  in  the  cup  of  the 
new  covenant  in  the  blood  of  Jesus,  which  was  shed 
"  for  the  many,  for  the  forgiveness  of  sins."  The 
Ephesian  evangelist,  who  speaks  of  Jesus  as  the  "  pro- 
pitiation "  (tAaa/ids)  for  our  sins,  and  not  for  ours  only 
but  also  for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world,  means  nothing 
different  when  he  says  quite  simply  a  few  verses  fur- 
ther on :  "  I  write  unto  you,  little  children,  because 
your  sins  are  forgiven  you  for  his  name's  sake."  Paul 
means  by  "  justification  "  just  what  all  Christians  of 
his  time  mean  when  they  celebrate  the  sacrament.  He 
means  "  the  forgiveness  of  our  sins  for  his  name's  sake," 
i.  e.,  because  we  bear  the  name  of  Jesus.  He  does  not 
mean  "  righteousness."  He  simply  uses  the  Isaian  ex- 
pression for  "  rightness  "  M'ith  God. 

Again,  if  we  take  the  other  term  of  the  great  for- 
mula, and  ask  what  is  the  new  and  special  sense  which 
Paul  gives  the  word  "  faith,"  our  best  answer  will  be 
found  in  the  other  sacrament,  baptism,  whose  sense  I 
have  already  given  as  an  answering  self-dedication  of 
the  penitent  believer  to  the  self-dedication  of  Jesus.  In 
baptism  the  convert  "  confesses  his  '  faith.'  "  In  Jewish 
practice  it  was  the  rite  by  which  converts  from  heathen- 
ism put  oft"  the  pollutions  of  idols,  and  were  received 
as  members  of  Israel. 

To  Paul  as  to  Philo  Abraham  is  the  hero  of  "  faith  " 
because  he  left  the  gods  whom  his  father  had  served 
beyond  the  river  Euphrates  to  serve  a  living  and  true 
God.  Circumcision  was  given  him  as  a  kind  of  bap- 
tism "  made  with  hands."  Rahab,  who  renounced  the 
gods  of  her  own  people  to  cast  in  her  lot  with  the  God 


THE    TRANSFIGUEATION    OF   THE    GOSPEX,  89 

of  Moses  and  Joshua,  is  the  feminine  parallel  to  Abra- 
ham. Both  were  saved  by  their  "  faith."  In  Josephus 
we  read  the  story  of  Izates,  a  convert  of  Judaism,  of 
Paul's  own  time,  who  was  at  first  excused  from  the  for- 
mal rite  of  adoption  into  Israel  by  circumcision,  but 
afterward  learned  in  Josephus'  words  that  "  the  fruit  of 
piety  does  not  perish  for  those  that  look  to  God,  and 

fix  their  faith  on  him  only  "  (^TreTna-TevKoa-iv  Itt'  avzM  fiovio), 

Izates  probably  received  the  Jewish  rite  of  baptism,  and 
if  so  it  was  in  confession  of  this  "  faith."  John's  con- 
verts were  similarly  baptized  in  token  of  repentance  and 
"  faith."  They  were  thus  received  as  members  of  the 
people  "  prepared  for  Jehovah's  Coming."  After 
Jesus'  death  the  first  act  of  the  brotherhood  of  those  who 
were  determined  to  avail  themselves  of  the  new  Way  of 
reconciliation  with  God,  believing  that  God  had  actually 
made  him  both  Lord  and  Christ,  was  to  take  up  the  rite 
of  baptism,  significantly  making  it  not  merely  a  token 
of  repentance,  but  a  confession  of  "  faith  "  and  loyalty. 
They  were  baptized  "  into  the  name  of  Jesus."  They 
dedicated  themselves  to  him.  They  confessed  him  as 
"  Lord,"  by  which  they  meant  their  Advocate,  their 
Mediator,  their  Friend  in  the  court  of  heaven.  Hence 
the  "  faith  "  which  is  denoted  in  baptism  is  far  from 
being  a  dry  intellectual  conviction.  With  Paul,  as  with 
Philo,  as  with  Deutero-Isaiah,  it  is  the  saving  grace  of 
Abraham,  the  Eock-foundation  ^  of  Israel.  It  implies 
both  trust  and  obedience.  It  implies  loyalty  without 
limit.  It  means  self-dedication  to  Jehovah,  under  His 
Christ,  for  this  world  and  the  world  to  come.  Indeed 
the  Jewish  "  confession  of  faith,"  the  well  known 
Shema  which  Jesus  quotes  as  the  sum  and  substance  of 
religion :  "  The  Lord  our  God  is  one  Lord,  and  thou 
shalt  love  him  with  all  thy  heart  and  all  thy  soul  and  all 
thy  strength,"  is  not  a  creed,  even  if  James  does  treat 

3  Is.  51 :  1 . 


90  JESUS    AND    PAUL, 

it  SO  when  he  says  "  Thou  believest  that  God  is  one ;  the 
devils  also  believe  and  tremble."  Israel's  religious 
teachers  were  never  so  foolish  as  to  imagine  you  could 
unite  men  by  anything  so  inherently  divisive  as  a  creed. 
The  Sliema  is  a  sacramentum,  an  oath  of  loyalty.  The 
man  who  utters  it  "  takes  upon  him  the  yoke  of  the 
divine  sovereignty."  He  knows  but  one  supreme  object 
to  which  all  his  powers  should  be  directed,  and  they  are 
unified  in  unreserved  dedication  to  Him.  If  we  took 
the  Shema  as  our  "  confession  of  faith  "  as  Jesus  did, 
both  our  "  faith  "  and  our  unity  would  be  immeasurably 
the  gainers.  In  the  language  of  New  England  Uni- 
tarianism  it  is  the  covenant  and  not  the  creed  which 
constitutes  the  basis  of  unity. 

Returning  to  the  question  of  Paul's  special  use  of 
the  term  ''  faith,"  it  seems  to  me  we  can  have  no  better 
interpreter  of  his  real  meaning  than  the  rite  by  which 
he  and  all  his  fellow-Christians  expressed  their  relation 
to  the  risen  Lord.  "  Faith  "  includes  for  Paul  far  more 
than  mere  intellectual  assent,  more  even  than  passive 
trust ;  but  not  more  than  the  Christian  believer  expressed 
in  the  rite  by  which  he  '^  confessed  his  faith,"  being 
"  buried  with  Christ  through  baptism  into  death,  that 
like  as  Christ  was  raised  from  the  dead  through  the 
glory  of  the  Father  so  we  also  might  walk  in  newness 
of  life."  The  "  faith  "  betokened  in  baptism  is  an  an- 
swering self-dedication  of  the  penitent  believer  to  the 
self-dedication  of  Jesus.  To  use  Paul's  chosen  expres- 
sion he  "  presents  himself  to  God  as  alive  from  the 
dead."  Is  God  unjust  if  he  treat  as  just  the  sinner  that 
comes  to  him  in  this  self-dedicating  faith  ?  Or  is  it  not 
rather  an  act  of  faithfulness  to  His  promises  and  thus 
of  "justice"  (in  the  Hebrew  sense  of  the  word)  "to 
forgive  us  our  sins,  and  (by  progressive  conformation  to 
the  image  of  his  Son)  to  cleanse  us  from  all  unrighteous- 
ness "  ? 


THE    TRANSFIGUKATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL  91 

I  have  tried  to  show  bj  this  example  of  the  first  of 
the  two  principles  of  Paul's  gospel,  Justification  by 
faith,  that  we  only  need  bring  his  terms  to  the  test  of 
those  visible  expressions  of  the  common  faith,  the  sacra- 
ments, to  see  that  there  is  no  real  innovation  whatever. 
To  some  extent  the  terms  are  new.  At  least  they  seem 
to  bear  a  new  connotation.  They  begin  to  sound  theo- 
logical rather  than  evangelical.  But  for  this  also  there 
is  a  reason,  besides  Paul's  individualism,  and  besides 
the  influence  of  Isaiah.  It  is  what  I  may  call  Paul's 
apologetic. 

The  gTeat  passage  which  is  made  central  by  all  the 
biblical  theologians  for  Paul's  gospel  of  Justification  by 
Faith  is  the  text  in  Eomans  3 :  24.  But  instead  of  tak- 
ing this  absolutely  as  an  utterance  by  itself  we  should 
have  observed  that  it  sums  up  a  long  defense  of  Paul's 
gospel  of  grace  against  objections  brought  by  Jews,  or 
Jewish  Christians  of  legalistic  tendencies,  who  aver  that 
it  opens  the  door  to  sin,  and  is  inconsistent  with  the 
divine  justice.  Paul  declares  that  he  is  not  ashamed 
of  this  gospel,  in  spite  of  these  objections,  because  there 
is  revealed  in  it  "  a  righteousness  (or  '  justification,' 
SiKaioavvr])  of  God  by  faith  unto  faith."  In  spite  of 
the  slanderous  misrepresentations  of  his  doctrine,  this 
"  justification  "  is  witnessed  even  by  the  law  and  the 
prophets."*  It  is  a  free  acquittal  at  the  divine  judgTaent 
seat,  without  distinction  of  Jew  or  Gentile,  since  all 
alike  are  sinners.  If  they  come  with  faith  in  Jesus 
Christ  they  are  justified  freely  by  God's  grace,  through 
the  redemption  that  is  in  Christ  Jesus.  Then  Paul  be- 
gins to  expound  what  he  means  by  this  redemption  or 
ransom,  corresponding  to  the  ransoming  of  Israel  when 
they  were  slaves  to  the  Egyptians.  "  God,"  he  says,  in 
highly  figurative  language,  "  set  Jesus  forth  in  his  blood 

4  The  expression  is  general,  but  if  a  specific  passage  were  in 
mind  it  would  doubtless  be  the  Servant's  "offering  for  sin"  (Is. 
53:  10-12;   cf.  Rom.  4:  25). 


92  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

as  a  token  of  the  restoration  of  His  favor,  a  '  propiti- 
ation'  "  (IXaaTTjpiov) .  God  did  this,  he  adds,  to  prove 
His  own  righteousness,  because  in  His  forbearance  He 
had  passed  over  a  long  record  of  human  sin,  but  now 
because  of  this  martyrdom  He  can  at  the  same  time  be 
just  while  he  freely  forgives  him  that  hath  faith  in 
Jesus.  For  the  sinner's  trust  leads  him  to  a  sincere 
act  of  self-dedication  and  so  makes  him  trust-worthy. 
It  is  "  by  faith  unto  faith." 

This  is  apologetic.  The  point  of  it  is  directed  against 
those  who  deny  the  "  justice  "  of  a  God  who  should  for- 
give sinners  on  any  such  conditions.  The  language  is 
not  such  as  Paul  would  have  chosen  for  catechumens. 
Indeed  it  would  be  hard  to  find  a  passage  more  charac- 
teristically secondary  and  ad  hominem  in  its  presenta- 
tion of  the  doctrine.  The  proof  is  that  nowhere  else 
in  the  New  Testament,  not  even  in  Paul's  own  epistles, 
do  we  find  this  theological  motive  put  forward  as  ac- 
counting for  the  sacrifice  on  Calvary,  that  God  was 
thereby  vindicating  his  own  respect  for  the  law  He  had 
Himself  ordained.  This  is  made  the  very  foundation 
stone  of  modem  doctrines  of  the  Atonement.  Yet  apart 
from  the  heat  of  theological  debate  it  would  probably 
never  have  entered  the  mind  of  Paul  or  of  any  enlight- 
ened Jew  to  limit  the  privilege  —  nay  the  duty  of  the 
Almighty  to  forgive  the  truly  repentant,  sacrifice  or  no 
sacrifice.  The  Occidental  idea  of  a  judge  who  is  lim- 
ited in  his  endeavor  to  secure  the  highest  good  of  all  con- 
cerned by  fixed  principles  of  law  is  foreign  to  the  Ori- 
ental. To  the  Semite,  from  time  immemorial,  the 
judge  is  a  father,  whose  decision  is  made  to  fit  the  given 
case.  Precedent  is  merely  his  guide  to  the  highest 
good  of  all  concerned,  and  he  leaves  to  the  parties  in- 
volved absolute  power  to  inflict  or  remit  the  penalty. 
To  the  ancient  Jew  as  to  the  modem  Moslem  Jehovah 
is  the  "All-Merciful"  (Er-Rahman).     It  is  the  very 


THE    TBANSFIGUBATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL  93 

essence  of  His  glory  that  He  "  forgives  iniquity,  trans- 
gression and  sin."  It  is  an  evidence  not  only  of  His 
"  faithfulness,"  but  of  his  "  justice  "  that  he  does  so.^ 
Jesus'  idea  of  the  attempt  to  limit  the  divine  "  grace  " 
by  appeal  to  what  the  Occidental  calls  "  justice "  is 
illustrated  in  the  parable  of  the  Eleventh-hour  Laborers, 
of  all  the  parables  that  with  which  the  modern  finds  it 
hardest  to  sympathize.  The  householder,  who  of  course 
represents  the  divine  Arbiter  of  reward  and  punish- 
ment, gives  this  answer  to  the  complaint  of  inequality: 
"  May  I  not  do  what  I  will  with  mine  own  ?  or  is  thine 
eye  evil  because  I  am  good  ?  " 

We  cannot  infer  any  change  in  Jesus'  Galilean  gospel 
of  free  forgiveness  from  the  fact  that  under  the  shadow 
of  the  cross  in  Jerusalem  he  dedicates  his  life  in  what 
the  Maccabean  martyrs  would  have  called  "  propitia- 
tion "  of  God.  His  sense  of  individual  peace  with  God 
in  spite  of  the  calamities  and  persecutions  of  the  world 
remains  undisturbed,  whether  the  problem  of  national 
deliverance  be  solved  or  not.  Jesus  is  not  obliged  to 
■retract  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son  when  he  utters 
that  of  the  Usurping  Husbandmen  who  slay  the  Heir  of 
the  Vineyard.  In  the  Galilean  gospel  of  "  reconcilia- 
tion "  the  problem  of  unmerited  suffering  is  simply  left 
untouched.  In  the  midst  of  persecution  the  little  flock 
will  still  rejoice  in  assurance  of  a  great  reward  in 
Heaven.  But  face  to  face  with  the  national  catastrophe 
of  his  own  rejection  and  death  Jesus  was  forced  to  find 
an  answer  to  the  question  which  Isaiah  had  answered 
with  the  doctrine  of  vicarious  suffering.  For  some  rea- 
son the  repentant,  obedient,  and  loyal  remnant  are  per- 
mitted to  suffer.  Why  is  this  ?  The  question  will  not 
down.  Contemporary  writers  conceived  of  the  delay 
in  God's  saving  intervention  as  due  to  a  "  measure  of 
suffering  "  which  must  be  "  filled  up."    Why  this  should 

6  IJn.  1:9. 


94  JESUS    AND    PAUI. 

be  was  variously  explained.  As  Deutcro-Isaiah  and  the 
Apocalypse  of  BarucJi  conceive  it  God  has  a  design  of 
redemption  for  the  heathen  world,  to  which  the  catas- 
trophe to  Israel  is  a  necessary  means.  As  the  Apoca- 
lypse of  Barucli  expresses  it,  "  God  scattered  Israel 
among  the  Gentiles  that  he  might  do  the  Gentiles  good." 
Paul's  doctrine  of  the  ^^  hardening  of  Israel  "  as  a  means 
to  the  conversion  of  the  Gentiles  has  a  certain  resem- 
blance to  this  Isaian  doctrine,  and  I  should  like  to  be- 
lieve with  Canon  Sanday,  that  Jesus  himself  adopted  it; 
but  the  evidence  seems  to  me  too  slender.  The  Synop- 
tic report  can  hardly  be  said  to  bear  this  construction, 
and  Paul  makes  no  reference  to  vicarious  suffering  as 
a  teaching  of  Jesus,  but  only  of  "  Scripture."  On  the 
other  hand  the  martyrologies  of  II  and  IV  Maccabees 
explain  the  delay  as  due  to  the  need  of  placating  the 
indignation  of  Jehovah  at  Israel's  disobedience.  The 
martyrs  willingly  dedicate  their  bodies  and  blood  as  a 
"substitute"  (^avTixpvxov)^  an  "expiation"  (^KaOapuiov) 
to  "  propitiate  "  (e^tAao-(9ai)  Jehovah's  favor,  or  to  turn 
away  his  just  "wrath"  (opyr/).  Here  too  we  are  still 
without  the  means  of  answering  the  question  (and  prob- 
ably always  shall  be)  to  what  extent,  if  at  all,  Jesus 
shared  this  anthropomorphic  point  of  view.  We  only 
know  that  he  had  come  face  to  face  with  the  probability 
(humanly  speaking  the  certainty)  of  the  rejection  of 
his  message  and  his  own  martyrdom.  Why  lie  must 
drink  the  cup  he  did  not  profess  to  understand. 
Enough  that  it  was  His  Father's  will  that  he  should 
drink  it,  and  that  His  Father's  way  was  the  right  way 
for  the  salvation  of  the  whole  people  of  God  everywhere. 
But  the  spirit  in  which  he  drank  it  was  not  an  indiffer- 
ent thing.  By  offering  it  willingly  to  God  he  could 
make  the  cup  of  his  owri  suffering  a  "  cup  of  blessing  " 
to  all  that  followed  Him. 

The  great  difference  between  this  and  the  Pauline 


THE    TRANSFIGUEATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL  95 

"  gospel  of  the  reconciliation  "  is  that  from  the  nature 
of  Paul's  mission  it  loses  its  national  character  and  be- 
comes individual.  It  could  not  otherwise  be  universal. 
The  "  wrath  "  of  God  must  be  propitiated  not  merely 
as  respects  Israel,  but  for  the  individual  sin  of  all  men, 
evervAvhere.  This  is  already  a  fateful  step  along  the 
road  that  leads  to  the  mediaeval  theories  and  doijTaas  of 
the  Atonement.  And  it  is  carried  further  by  Paul's 
apologetic,  his  answer  to  those  who  said :  "  Are  you  not 
ashamed  to  preach  a  gospel  which  by  offering  unmerited 
forgiveness  makes  the  Christ  a  minister  of  sin,  and  God 
an  easy-going  Judge  lax  in  the  enforcement  of  His  ovm 
law  ?  " 

Apologetic  such  as  Paul's  cannot  fairly  be  treated  as 
though  it  were  the  original  and  spontaneous  product  of 
his  own  mind.  The  primary  statement  of  the  doctrine 
of  "  grace  "  is  one  thing.  Rebuttal  of  objections  is  an- 
other. We  must  look  at  Paul's  transfiguration  of  the 
gospel  with  this  distinction  in  mind. 

Two  things  may  well  strike  the  reader  of  the  Gospels 
as  strange  in  Paul's  controversial  statement  of  the  doc- 
trine of  "  the  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus  " ;  first,  that  God, 
rather  than  Jesus  himself,  should  appear  as  agent  in  the 
redeeming  sacrifice.  In  Paul's  conception  Jesus  no 
longer  offers  himself.  God  offers  him  up.  God  even 
"  sets  him  forth  in  his  blood  to  be  a  propitiation " 
(tAaorr/ptov).  But  it  is  quite  unfair  to  regard  Paul  as 
responsible  for  this.  The  representation  belongs  to 
Isaiali ;  and  to  the  primitive  Church,  which  even  before 
Paul  became  a  convert  had  already  taken  as  the  very 
basis  of  its  gospel  the  scripture  in  which  Isaiah  ex- 
plained the  suffering  of  the  martyred  Servant  by  declar- 
ing that  Jehovah  "  delivered  him  up,"  that  "  it  pleased 
the  Lord  to  bruise  him,"  and  more  especially  that  God 
had  "  made  his  soul  a  sin-offering  "  in  behalf  of  the 
many  who  regai'ded  not."     The  Servant's  part  in  the 

6  Is.  53:  12. 


96  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

Isaian  Song  is  only  "  to  make  intercession  for  the  trans- 
gressors." Paul  does  indeed  repeatedly  speak  of  the 
sacrifice  as  God's,  as  a  transaction  in  which  God  "  com- 
mends his  own  love  toward  sinners,"  in  which  He,  rather 
than  Jesus,  is  the  offerer  of  the  sacrifice,  and  the  mani- 
fester  of  the  great  propitiation  for  the  sin  of  the  world. 
Paul  does  make  the  part  of  Jesus  mainly  that  of  inter- 
cession. But  in  this  respect  he  has  a  complete  defense 
against  any  charge  of  theologizing  innovation.  The 
conception  is  simply  Isaiah's.  It  had  already  been 
adopted  by  those  from  whom  Paul  "  received "  this 
teaching  as  something  "  witnessed  by  the  law  and  the 
prophets."  In  point  of  fact  how  did  Jesus  go  to  the 
sacrifice,  if  not  in  submission  to  the  inscrutable  will  of 
His  Father  and  very  much  against  his  own  ? 

But,  secondly,  we  are  also  struck  by  the  fact  (already 
noted  as  peculiar  to  this  single  passage  of  the  New 
Testament)  that  the  motive  for  the  sacrifice  is  said  in 
Rom.  3:26  to  be  God's  intention  "  to  prove  his  own 
righteousness,"  both  in  the  exercise  of  forbearance  in 
passing  over  sin  in  the  past,  and  in  the  present  time  in 
"  justifying  him  that  hath  faith  in  Jesus."  To  make 
his  assertion  the  strongest  possible  Paul  uses  the  para- 
dox :  "  To  him  that  has  no  works,  but  only  puts  his 
trust  in  the  God  that  justifies  the  unjust,  his  faith  is 
reckoned  for  righteousness."  If  you  put  it  that  way 
even  an  Oriental  judge  who  undertakes  to  forgive  the 
criminal  as  a  favor  to  an  interceding  third  party  does 
owe  an  explanation  to  the  public.  He  will  be  injuring 
his  own  reputation  as  unsparing  to  the  guilty,  and  will 
be  liable  to  undermine  the  law  itself  as  a  deterrent  from 
wrong-doing.  But  how  does  Paul  come  to  "  put  it  that 
way  "  just  here,  and  here  only  ?  As  I  have  already 
pointed  out,  it  is  not  because  this  way  of  looking  at  tlie 
matter  is  natural  to  him  or  to  any  other  Jew,  ancient  or 
modern.     It  is  purely  controversial  and  ad  hominem. 


THE    TRA.NSFIGUKATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL,  97 

The  very  fact  that  it  occurs  nowhere  else  should  have 
been  a  warning  to  the  successive  generations  of  theo- 
logical writers  on  the  Atonement  not  to  begin,  as  they 
so  often  do,  with  the  idea  of  the  claims  of  the  law  to 
vindication,  as  if  that  were  really  the  basis  of  Paul's 
thought.  The  idea  might  never  have  occurred  to  him 
if  he  had  not  been  forced  to  defend  the  simple  gospel 
of  salvation  by  the  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus  against  de- 
tractors who  declared  that  he  "  made  the  law  of  none 
effect,"  and  God  indulgent  toward  sin.  Let  us  distin- 
guish between  occasional  ad  hominem  arguments  of  Paul 
in  defense  of  his  gospel  against  those  who  blasphemously 
misrepresented  his  teaching,  and  his  simple  proclama- 
tion of  "  the  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus  "  which  he  em- 
phatically declares  to  be  in  complete  harmony  with  that 
of  his  predecessors  in  the  faith.  The  ad  hominem  ar- 
gument was  that  God  had  (in  Scripture)  given  the  "  ex- 
planation to  the  public." 

After  all,  the  question  as  it  presented  itself  to  Paul 
was  supremely  practical  in  its  nature.  On  the  one  side 
a  given  number  of  repentant  souls  who  come  to  God 
conscious  of  ill-desert  and  condemnation,  but  asking  for- 
giveness for  the  sake  of  one  who  loved  them  and  gave 
himself  up  for  their  sake.  On  the  other  the  God  and 
Father  of  all,  not  ignorant  as  to  whether  the  profes- 
sion made  by  these  is  sincere  or  insincere,  but  able  to 
look  on  the  heart,  well  aware  that  this  one  and  that  other 
that  comes  to  Him  in  the  faith  of  Jesus  had  indeed  died 
unto  sin,  living  henceforth  in  the  faith  that  is  expressed 
by  baptism,  a  new  life  of  utter  self-dedication  to  the 
risen  Lord,  and  to  the  kingdom  he  died  to  bring  to  pass. 
The  real  question  is:  What  treatment  should  this  God 
mete  out  to  souls  that  come  to  Him  in  such  repentance 
and  such  faith  ?  Knowing  them  to  be  already  truly  a 
new  creation  in  this  repentant  faith,  should  God  treat 
them  as  just  in  spite  of  their  evil  past;  or  should  He 


98  JESUS    AND    PAUL. 

for  the  sake  of  the  law,  or  because  of  the  impression 
His  lenience  may  make  on  others,  or  for  any  reason 
whatever,  treat  them  as  if  they  were  still  unjust  ? 
Should  He  (to  use  a  colloquialism)  exact  the  penalty 
"  on  general  principles  "  ?  Certainly  this  exaction  of 
the  penalty  without  regard  to  the  present  attitude  of 
the  transgressor  is  not  what  Paul  would  consider  the 
justice  of  the  God  and  Father  of  Jesus  Christ.  Cer- 
tainly it  is  not  what  any  right-minded  Jew  would  con- 
sent to  believe  of  the  Alhmerciful,  forgiving  God  of  the 
law  and  the  prophets.  Legalists,  ancient,  mediaeval, 
and  modern,  will  raise  objections  to  a  simple  gospel  of 
forgiveness  of  the  truly  repentant,  through  the  grace  of 
the  Lord  Jesus.  It  is  against  such  that  Paul  declares 
that  in  the  predicted  "  offering  for  sin  "  God  vindicates 
His  o\vn  righteousness  notwithstanding  His  forbearance 
in  past  time,  and  His  free  forgiveness  in  the  present  of 
those  that  have  faith  in  Jesus.  God  can  forgive,  be- 
cause in  the  Scriptures  of  old  He  pointed  foi-ward  to 
the  martyrdom  of  Jesus;  therefore  His  forbearance  in 
past  time  cannot  be  counted  laxity.  He  can  forgive 
now,  because  the  forgiveness  is  for  those,  and  only  those, 
"  who  were  washed,  who  were  sanctified,  who  were  justi- 
fied in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  in  the 
Spirit  of  our  God."  Let  us  take  from  the  ancient  con- 
troversy what  is  applicable  in  our  own  time.  This  is 
Paul's  apologetic,  valid  against  the  objector.  It  is  not 
his  gospel. 

3.  Life  in  ilie  Spirit 

I  have  dwelt  at  greater  length  than  I  could  wish  upon 
the  first  of  the  two  great  Pauline  principles,  Justifica- 
tion by  Faith,  in  the  hope  of  showing  that  if  we  inter- 
pret in  the  light  of  the  symbol  of  the  cup  of  the  new 
covenant,  which  in  Paul's  time  was  its  only  visible  ex- 
pression, if  we  also  bear  in  mind  the  distinction  be- 


THE    TRANSFIGURATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL  99 

tween  gospel  and  apologetic,  we  shall  be  less  oppressed 
by  our  sense  of  innovation  and  difference  from  the 
primitive  teaching  of  Jesus.  In  point  of  fact  when  we 
turn  to  passages  in  which  Paul  is  not  using  theological 
argument,  but  simply  recalling  what  had  been  taught 
in  common  by  all  from  the  beginning,  passages  such  as 
the  report  of  the  institution  of  the  Supper  in  the  night 
of  betrayal  (I  Cor.  11:17-24),  or  the  reminder  to 
Peter  in  the  story  of  the  Rupture  at  Antioch  that  both 
alike  had  "  believed  on  Christ  Jesus,  that  we  might  be 
justified  by  faith  in  Christ,  because  we  knew  that  a  man 
is  not  justified  by  works  of  law,  but  only  through  faith 
in  Jesus  Christ  "  (GaL  2:  16),  we  find  continually  the 
same  gospel  of  forgiveness  through  the  sacrifice  of  Jesus, 
but  in  connections  in  which  it  is  impossible  not  to  admit 
that  the  assumption  Paul  makes  that  these  doctrines  are 
the  common  property  of  all  must  correspond  to  actual 
fact.  There  remain  but  a  few  moments  in  which  to 
apply  similar  principles  of  interpretation  to  the  other 
fundamental  teaching,  the  doctrine  of  Life  in  the  Spirit. 

Just  as  we  must  go  to  the  words  of  institution  of  the 
cup  of  the  new  covenant,  "  This  is  my  blood  that  is  shed 
for  you,"  with  or  without  the  explanatory  addition, 
"  for  the  remission  of  sins,"  in  order  to  understand 
what  Paul  meant  by  Justification,  so  we  must  go  to 
baptism,  that  other  rite  which  he  underAvent  once  for  all 
when  he  confessed  Jesus  as  his  Lord,  the  rite  which  he 
always  interprets  as  a  voluntary  participation  in  the 
death  and  resurrection  of  Josus,  in  order  to  understand 
fully  what  he  means  by  Sanctification,  or  Life  in  the 
Spirit. 

Paul's  baptism  really  forms  part  of  the  religious  ex- 
perience which  it  so  shortly  followed.  It  was  the  out- 
ward expression  of  the  inward  grace.  What  he  brought 
to  it  we  already  partly  appreciate  from  his  many  refer- 
ences to  the  rite,  and  from  the  history  of  the  observance 


100  JESUS   AND    PAUL 

even  before  its  adoption  by  the  followers  of  the  l^aza- 
rene  Messiah.     The  convert  brought  to  it  repentance 
and  faith,  a  putting  off  of  the  former  life,  a  self-dedi- 
cation to  a  new  loyalty.     All  were  baptized  into  Christ, 
says  Paul,  as  the  slaves  redeemed  from  Egypt  were 
brought  under  the  leadership  of  Moses ;  when,  released 
from  the  darkness  of  their  house  of  bondage,  they  passed 
through  the  Red  Sea,  and  emerging  from  its  waters  were 
overshadowed  by  the  cloud  of  Jehovah's  presence.     Re- 
pentance,  it  has  been   observed,   is   a   word   that   has 
scarcely  a  place  in  Paul's  vocabulary.     The  remark  is 
characteristic.     Paul's    words   are   new;    but   not    the 
things  for  which  they  stand.     He  talks  of  "  justifica- 
tion "    where   the    Gospels    speak   of    "  forgiveness    of 
sins."     Soiie  speaks  of  "  dying  to  sin,"  "  putting  off  the 
old  man  with  his  deeds,"  "  being  buried  with  Christ 
through  baptism  into  death,"  "  being  crucified  with  him 
that  the  body  of  sin  might  be  done  away,  that  so  we 
should  no  longer  be  in  bondage  to  sin,"  where  the  Gos- 
pels speak  simply  of  "  repentance,"  "  change  of  mind  " 
(/aeravoia),    or    in    Hebrew    phrase    teshuba,    "turning 
again."     If  there  is  a  difference  in  Paul's  expression 
corresponding  to  the  difference  between  his  experience 
and  that  of  a  Mary  Magdalen  or  a  Zacchaeus,  it  cer- 
tainly is  not  one  that  shows  less  depth  and  reality  of 
feeling.     For  him,  as  for  the  rich  ruler  whom  Jesus 
"  loved,"    repentance   was    "  from   dead   works."     The 
term  "  faith  "  likewise  receives  new  enrichment  in  pass- 
ing through  the  alembic  of  Paul's  mind.     It  is  invested 
now  with  the  connotations  of  the  later  Jewish  literature, 
and  here  as  Dr.  Morgan  notes,''^  the  grace  of  "  faith  " 
plays  a  primary  role.     It  is  still  further  enriched,  as 
we  have  just  seen,  with  the  connotations  of  the  bap- 
tismal rite.     The  case  is  similar  with  the  term  "  re- 
pentance";  only  that  now  we  have  new  terms  alto- 
7  Religion  and  Theology  of  Paul,  p.  114. 


THE    TRANSFIGURATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL  101 

gether.  Paul  translates  first  into  the  language  of  his 
personal  experience,  and  then  a  second  time  into  the 
language  of  Greek  religious  mysticism,  in  which  the 
forms  of  initiation  symbolize  a  participation  in  the 
death  and  resurrection  of  the  Savior-god,  the  condition 
being  self -dedication  to  the  service  of  the  divinity,  the 
reward  immortality.  Paul's  experience  was  something 
more  than  ordinary  repentance.  He  "  died  unto  sin 
that  he  might  live  unto  God  in  Christ  Jesus." 

"We  were  forced  back,  when  we  sought  the  real  basis 
of  Paul's  doctrine  of  justification,  upon  his  references 
in  Galatians,  Romans,  and  Second  Corinthians,  to  his 
personal  religious  experience,  his  conflict  of  soul,  its 
sudden  solution  by  a  divine  intervention,  his  revelation 
of  the  glorified  Jesus,  surpassing  the  revelation  to 
Moses  of  the  glory  of  the  forgiving  God.  We  must 
again  turn  in  like  manner  to  these  same  allusions,  par- 
ticularly those  of  Romans  and  Second  Corinthians,  to 
reach  the  real  basis  of  Paul's  gospel  of  Life  in  the 
Spirit,  the  thing  which  the  believer  takes  away  with  him 
from  baptism  as  God's  part  in  the  transaction. 

Paul  is  no  exception  to  the  'New  Testament  writers 
generally  in  basing  everything  on  the  Gift  of  the  Spirit, 
the  expected  accompaniment  of  baptism,  without  which 
baptism  itself  cannot  be  considered  Christian,  but  must 
be  repeated.^  "  If  any  man  have  not  the  Spirit  of 
Christ  he  is  none  of  his."  Conversely,  if  the  question 
be  raised  whether  Paul  has  not  offered  the  Galatians  a 
share  in  the  messianic  promises  on  too  easy  terms,  he 
has  but  one  appeal :  "  This  only  would  I  know  from 
you,  when  and  how  did  ye  receive  the  Spirit."  Peter's 
early  excursion  into  the  Gentile  mission-field  is  at  first 
questioned  in  Jerusalem,  but  all  opposition  is  silenced 
when  he  relates  how,  "  the  Spirit  fell  upon  them,  even 
as  upon  us  at  the  first,  and  they  began  to  speak  with 

8 Acts  18:  Iff. 


102  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

tongues."  Well  may  he  ask,  "  Who  then,  was  I,  that 
I  should  resist  God  ?  "  The  very  proof  of  the  resur- 
rection, and  of  God's  acceptance  of  these  brethren  of 
"  the  Way  "  as  His  people  of  the  new  covenant,  is  ac- 
cording to  Acts,  the  "  pouring  forth,"  in  audible  and 
visible  manifestations,  of  the  promised  Spirit  of 
prophecy  and  vision.  Unless  it  was  the  "  religion  of 
the  Spirit  "  Christianity,  even  in  the  eyes  of  its  own 
adherents,  was  no  religion  at  all  but  a  delusion.  The 
powers  of  "  tongues,"  "  prophecy,"  "  healings,"  "  mira- 
cles," dedication  of  goods,  which  followed  in  hundreds 
of  cases  as  hundreds  were  baptized,  were  regarded  as  a 
"  seal  "  of  heaven  setting  the  name  of  Jehovah  upon 
them,  even  as  the  prophets  had  foretold  the  pouring  out 
of  the  spirit  of  vision  and  prophecy,  and  the  manifesta- 
tion of  signs  and  wonders,  before  the  great  and  terrible 
day  of  the  Lord. 

Paul  differs  from  the  ordinary  view  in  making  the 
supreme  evidences  the  moral.  Faith,  hope  and  love  are 
to  abide  long  after  the  tongues  have  ceased,  the  prophe- 
cies found  their  fulfillment,  the  miracles  been  forgot- 
ten ;  and  these  three  are  the  best  "  gifts  of  the  Spirit," 
love  being  chief  among  them.  The  Apostle  shows  a 
striking  discernment  of  the  true  religious  values  in  this 
warning  to  the  marvel-loving  Corinthians,  but  he  forms 
no  exception  to  the  rule  among  all  Christians  in  holding 
that  the  visible  manifestations  of  the  Spirit,  miracles, 
tongues,  visions  and  revelations  of  the  Lord,  are  also  a 
demonstration  from  God.  They  are  "  signs  of  an  Apos- 
tle," signs  of  a  divine  adoption  when  granted  to  the 
ordinary  believer.  The  power  of  victory  within,  of 
which  tlie  believer  is  personally  conscious,  may  not  serve 
to  convince  the  outsider.  But  if  this  be  insufficient 
proof,  the  opposition  will  be  silenced  by  these  outward 
manifestations.  They  are  therefore,  as  Paul  plainly 
declares,  "  for  a  sign  not  to  them  that  believe,  but  to  the 


THE    TRANSFIGUBATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL  103 

unbelieving."  And  the  body  of  believers  who  straigbt- 
waj,  from  the  vei;y  outset,  began  to  appeal  to  these 
mighty  works  as  proof  of  the  presence  of  the  Spirit,  and 
of  God's  acceptance  of  their  self-dedication  in  the  name 
of  Jesus,  were  doing  no  violence  whatever  to  the  teach- 
ing of  their  Master.  Jesus  himself  had  appealed  to 
similar  works  when  asked  by  the  disciples  of  John  as 
to  the  expected  Coming  of  the  Messiah.  He  had  de- 
clared that  the  rejection  of  the  testimony  they  bore  was 
the  ground  of  condemnation  for  the  unbelieving  cities 
of  Galilee.  He  had  pointed  the  scribes  to  them  as  proof 
that  the  Kingdom  he  preached  was  potentially  already 
present  among  them,  that  "  the  Spirit  of  God  "  was  at 
work,  and  Satan's  throne  already  tottering.  If  we  can- 
not accuse  the  pre-Pauline  Church  of  departing  in  this 
respect  from  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  still  less  can  we  do 
so  in  the  case  of  Paul,  who  supports  his  doctrine  of  the 
forgiveness  of  sin,  by  pointing  to  the  inward  effects  of 
the  Spirit,  its  victory  over  the  law  of  sin  in  our  mem- 
bers, as  the  highest  proof  of  all.  Is  there  indeed  any 
essential  difference  between  Paul's  argument  in  First 
Corinthians  for  victorious,  soul-renewing  love,  as  the 
highest  gift,  the  highest  proof  of  the  adoption,  and  the 
argument  by  which  Jesus  justifies  his  declaration  to  the 
penitent  harlot :  "  thy  sins  are  forgiven  "  ?  Jesus  ap- 
peals to  the  same  inward  new  creation  by  the  power  of 
God  in  the  parable  whose  point  is  ''  Her  sins,  which  are 
many,  are  forgiven ;  for  she  hath  showed  much  love : 
but  to  whom  little  is  forgiven,  the  same  loveth  little." 
Measured  by  his  own  standard  of  works  the  Pharisee  is 
here  put  to  shame  by  the  forgiven  harlot.  Is  that  essen- 
tially different  from  Paul's  appeal  to  the  fruits  of  the 
Spirit?  It  would  be  well  to  remember  that  Paul  has 
such  instances  in  view  when  the  question  is  raised 
whether  it  is  compatible  with  the  justice  of  God  to 
grant   free   forgiveness   to   the  unjust.     What   is   the 


104  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

practical    result  ?     Do    they,    or    do    they    not,    "  love 
much  "  ? 

In  the  first  five  chapters  of  Romans  we  have  a  de- 
fense of  Paul's  doctrine  of  Justification  by  Faith.  The 
remainder  of  the  doctrinal  section  down  to  the  point 
where  he  begins  his  explanation  of  the  rejection  of 
Israel  in  chapters  9-11  is  taken  up  with  a  defense  of 
his  doctrine  of  Sanctification,  or  Life  in  the  Spirit;  and 
this  must  be  understood,  if  we  follow  the  principle  of 
interpretation  already  laid  down,  as  a  teaching  of  the 
significance  of  baptism.  But  I  must  again  recall  also 
the  distinction  between  gospel  and  apologetic;  for  while 
after  the  brief  transition  in  the  last  verse  of  chapter  5 
Paul  does  immediately  plunge  into  the  meaning  of  bap- 
tism as  a  moral  participation  in  the  death  of  Christ, 
and  in  the  closing  eighth  chapter  wind  up  with  a  sub- 
lime description  of  the  transfiguration  of  both  soul  and 
body  effected  by  the  incoming  of  the  new  Spirit,  it  is 
quite  obvious  from  the  argmnentative  character  of  the 
long  elaboration  in  the  intervening  chapters  describing 
his  own  death  to  sin  under  the  law,  that  he  is  defending 
his  gospel  of  grace  from  the  charge  that  it  takes  away 
the  restraint  of  the  law,  and  thus  makes  Christ  "  a 
minister  of  sin."  In  fact  the  whole  development  should 
be  read  in  the  light  of  the  briefer  summary  in  Gal.  2 : 
19,  20:  "1  died  to  the  law  that  I  might  live  unto 
God.  I  have  been  crucified  with  Christ,  and  it  is  no 
longer  I  that  live,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me,  and  to  the 
extent  that  I  still  live  in  the  flesh  I  live  in  self-dedica- 
tion to  the  Son  of  God  who  loved  me,  and  gave  himself 
for  me."  This  is  manifestly  Paul's  answer  to  those 
who  denounce  his  doctrine  of  the  abolition  of  law,  de- 
claring that  he  removes  all  barriers  to  sin.  It  is  hardly 
needful  to  repeat  his  splendid  defense  in  the  exhortation 
to  the  Galatians  to  "Walk  by  the  Spirit"  (Gal.  5: 
13-6:  10),  and  the  ampler  defense  in  the  great  chap- 


THE    TRANSFIGURATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL,  105 

ters  we  are  considering  in  Romans  6-8.  These  repeat 
in  greater  detail  the  figure  of  dying  to  sin  through  the 
law  that  we  may  present  our  members  as  instruments 
of  righteousness  to  God  in  a  new  life  not  our  own  but 
the  life  of  Christ  re-incarnate  in  us,  so  that  "  we  were 
made  dead  to  the  law  through  the  body  of  Christ  (whose 
death  we  share)  ;  that  we  should  be  joined  to  another, 
even  to  him  that  was  raised  from  the  dead,  that  we 
might  bring  forth  fruit  unto  God."  We  are  more  espe- 
cially concerned  at  present  with  that  element  of  Paul's 
doctrine  of  Life  in  the  Spirit  which  has  to  do  with  its 
continuation  after  death ;  because  here  there  is  most 
ground  for  the  charge  of  innovation,  seeing  that  both  in 
the  eighth  of  Romans  and  in  the  section  of  II  Corinth- 
ians on  immortality,  the  section  which  joins  on  to  his 
comparison  of  the  revelation  of  the  ministry  of  the  new 
covenant  with  that  of  Moses,  he  unmistakably  employs 
the  conceptions  of  the  Hellenistic  mystery-religions. 
Thus  when  he  speaks  of  the  Spirit  of  Him  that  raised 
up  Jesus  from  the  dead  quickening  even  our  mortal 
bodies,  "  changing  them,"  as  he  says  in  another  place, 
"  into  the  likeness  of  the  glory-body  of  the  risen  Christ," 
when  he  declares  that  God  "  transfigures "  our  very 
flesh  by  the  continual  renewing  of  our  minds,  because 
of  (or  through)  His  Spirit  that  dwelleth  in  us,  the  con- 
ception is  certainly  akin  to  that  which  Philo  expresses 
in  his  reference  to  the  transfiguration  of  Moses  in  prepa- 
ration for  immortality.  Paul  comes  in  some  respects 
even  closer  to  the  ideas  of  the  mystery-religions  when 
in  the  great  resurrection  chapter  of  First  Corinthians 
he  uses  the  figure  of  the  seed-corn,  renewed  after  disso- 
lution in  the  earth  in  a  body  given  it  by  God,  and  most 
of  all  in  the  passage  of  II  Corinthians  on  the  immortal- 
ity for  which  we  were  intended  by  the  Creator,*^  and 
which  is  fully  attained  when  our  earthly  house  of  this 
9  11  Cor.  5;  cf.  Sap.  1:  13-16;  2:  23. 


106  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

tabernacle  is  dissolved,  and  we  are  clothed  upon  with 
our  house  from  heaven  of  God's  own  building. 

It  cannot  of  course  be  claimed  that  this  mystical  doc- 
trine of  transfiguration  by  conformation  to  the  likeness 
of  the  glorified  Lord  is  part  of  the  teacliing  of  Jesus. 
According  to  Paul  it  eft'ccts  first  a  moral  new  creation 
here  upon  the  earth,  because  those  who  live  "  live  no 
longer  unto  themselves  but  unto  him  who  for  their 
sakes  died  and  rose  again  " ;  but  it  also  efl^ects  a  re- 
clothing  with  a  spiritual  body,  so  that  mortality  is 
swallowed  up  in  life.  This  is  not  part  of  what  Jesus 
taught  in  Galilee;  but  it  is  emphatically  part  of  the 
original  gospel ;  for  it  is  the  very  reflection  of  Paul's 
own  vision  of  the  risen  Christ.  He  is  speaking  that 
which  he  knows  and  has  seen,  even  if  he  is  driven  for 
expression  to  language  borrowed  from  the  Hellenistic 
faiths.  It  is  the  very  essence  of  Paul's  message  that  he 
not  only  has  it  from  the  Lord  himself  that  Jesus  dedi- 
cated his  body  and  blood  for  our  reconciliation  to  the 
Father,  but  that  he  can  also  testify  of  his  own  knowl- 
edge that  God  accepted  the  sacrifice.  For  when  it  was 
the  good  pleasure  of  God  to  reveal  His  Son  in  him,  Paul 
too  received  the  earnest  of  the  Spirit.  The  revelation 
of  the  knowledge  of  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face  of  Jesus 
Christ  was  to  him  a  pledge  of  immortality,  since  we 
who  reflect  as  in  a  mirror  the  glory  of  the  Lord  are 
transfigured  into  the  same  likeness,  from  glory  to  glory. 
For  this  is  from  the  Lord,  who  is  himself  the  Spirit. 

Those  two  things,  symbolized  respectively  by  the  cup 
of  the  new  covenant  in  the  blood  of  Christ,  and  the  laver 
of  regeneration  —  these  two,  "  the  word  of  the  cross," 
and  new  life  through  the  vision  of  the  glorified  Son  of 
God,  give  Paul  his  gospel  and  his  apostleship.  Those 
who  bear  this  message  are  as  it  were  ambassadors  for 
God,  as  though  God  were  entreating  by  them  on  behalf 
of  Christ :     Be  ye  reconciled  to  God. 


LECTUEE  V 

THE    HEAVENLY   INTEKCESSOR   AS   SEEN   AND   INTER- 
PRETED   BY    PAUL 

1.  Jesus  as  the  Servant 

When  as  critical  historians  we  take  our  departure 
from  the  Pauline  Epistles  as  earliest  and  most  authen- 
tic witnesses  for  the  origins  of  our  religion,  we  discover 
first  of  all  that  the  two  ordinances  of  the  communion 
and  baptism  are  the  true  Urevangelium,  and  that  Paul's 
Christianity  is  an  interpretation  of  these.  His  own 
religious  experience  was  indeed  to  his  mind  a  miracu- 
lous intervention  of  God,  removing  the  veil  from  his 
eyes  so  that  he,  like  others  who  had  experienced  it  be- 
fore him,  could  see  Jesus  in  his  actual  condition  of 
glory  in  Heaven.  But  even  this  was  not  to  Paul  pri- 
mary in  any  other  sense  than  that  it  gave  him  a  direct 
authority  for  his  gospel  and  apostleship,  beyond  all 
human  teaching.  It  did  not  give  him  a  new  gospel  of 
his  own  to  preach,  hitherto  unheard-of,  but  the  same  gos- 
pel which  till  now  he  had  been  persecuting.  What  he 
had  experienced  had  been  wrought  by  God  in  Peter 
before  him.  What  he  taught  now  was  the  doctrine  of 
"  grace "  which  as  champion  of  "  the  law "  he  had 
persecuted  before.  When  he  refers  to  it  in  passages 
limited  to  the  basic  common  ground,  such  as  his  rebuke 
of  Peter  at  Antioch,  or  his  declaration  to  the  Corinth- 
ians of  agreement  with  all  the  other  witnesses  in  the 
common  resurrection  gospel,  he  leaves  no  question  of 
its  nature.  "  We  believed  on  Christ  Jesus  that  we 
might  be  forgiven  our  sins  bv  faith  in  Christ,"  the  faith 

107' 


108  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

symbolized  by  baptism  into  his  name,  the  faith  that  he 
had  "  died  for  our  sins  according  to  the  scriptures," 
and  that  he  had  been  "  raised  again  for  our  justifica- 
tion "  as  the  Intercessor  and  Reconciler  of  sinners  to 
God;  for  so  it  had  also  been  written  of  the  martyred 
Servant,  that  "  He  maketh  intercession  for  transgres- 
sors." 

It  is  true  that  Paul  nowhere  makes  any  direct  appeal 
on  his  own  account  to  the  Isaian  passage  which  he  re- 
fers to  as  fundamental  to  the  common  gospel,  and  that 
we  only  trace  its  effect  upon  his  thinking  indirectly  in 
such  passages  as  the  references  to  Jesus'  sinlessness 
(II  Cor.  5:21;  cf.  Is.  53:9,  10;  I  Pt.  2:22),  his 
having  been  "  delivered  up  for  our  transgressions " 
(irapeSodj]  8ia  to.  TrapairrMfxara  t;/xwv)  and  raised  for  our  jus- 
tification (StKaiojcrt?)  SO  that  "  while  we  were  yet  sick 
men  "  (da^eves;  cf.  Is.  53 :  5,  10),  "  sinners,"  and  "  ene- 
mies," we  were  "  justified  by  his  blood,"  "  reconciled  " 
(KaTrjXXdyrjfitv) ^  and  "saved  from  wrath  by  his  life" 
(Rom.  4:  25-5:  11)  ;  or  in  the  famous  passage  in  Phil. 
2:5-11  on  the  "exaltation"  of  the  Servant.  This 
seeming  neglect  of  the  prophetic  proof-text  by  Paul  is 
something  which  calls  for  explanation  together  with  the 
still  more  surprising  neglect  of  the  Synoptists. 

It  is  also  true  that  we  do  not  get  Paul's  gospel  at 
first  hand,  but  only  through  the  perspective  of  his 
apologetic.  It  forms  the  background  of  a  polemic 
wherein  Jewish-Christian  reactionaries  occupy  the  fore- 
ground with  their  objections  to  Paul's  sweeping  on- 
slaught on  legalism.  We  are  thus  under  the  necessity 
of  looking  for  the  ultimate  facts  through  a  double  me- 
dium, first  Paul's  controversial  application,  second,  and 
behind  this,  his  personal  religions  experience,  which 
compels  him  to  appropriate  the  faith  of  his  former  vic- 
tims in  terms  applicable  to  his  own  sense  of  the  supreme 
religious  need.     In  spite  of  this  double  refraction  (if  I 


THE  HEAVENLY  INTEKCESSOK  109 

may  call  it  so),  when  we  take  as  our  touchstone  the 
two  symbolic  ordinances  by  which  those  of  "  this  Way  " 
expressed  their  idea  of  the  hoped-for  salvation  while 
Paul  was  still  a  persecutor,  we  need  not  go  far  astray. 
We  shall  see  that  the  original  common  gospel  was  ex- 
actly what  Paul  calls  it ;  a  "  gospel  of  reconciliation," 
glad  tidings  of  peace  with  God,  who  had  been  estranged 
by  the  sin  of  the  people,  but  had  now  given  assurance 
of  forgiveness  to  all  that  come  to  Him  in  the  name  of 
Jesus,  participating  by  baptism  in  his  self-dedicating 
death.  For  in  baptism,  or  even  before  it  in  special 
revelations,  God  opened  the  eyes  of  their  heart.  They 
saw  Jesus  in  the  glory  to  which  he  had  been  raised  up. 
He  was  now  their  Advocate  with  the  Father,  interceding 
for  their  transgression.  And  the  confirmation  of  this 
inward  sight  was  the  visible  outpouring  of  the  Spirit, 
most  of  all  the  gift  of  tongues,  teaching  them  to  cry 
like  new-born  children,  Abba,  Abba,  and  offering  out- 
cries to  God  intelligible  only  to  Him.  The  Spirit  was 
thus  another  Intercessor  and  Advocate,  pleading  for 
them  with  God,  and  at  the  same  time  by  its  very  pres- 
ence convicting  the  world  of  its  injustice  to  them.^ 

Paul  was  compelled  to  defend  this  doctrine  of  for- 
giveness for  Christ's  sake  (or,  as  he  called  it,  "  justi- 
fication by  faith  in  Jesus")  against  the  charge  that  it 
"  made  Christ  a  minister  of  sin  " ;  and  his  defense  was 
that  those  who  were  baptized  lived  no  longer  unto  them- 
selves but  unto  him  who  for  their  sakes  died  and  rose 
again.  They  were  given  a  new  Spirit,  which  produced 
in  them  more  real  righteousness  than  was  within  their 
utmost  poAver  before.  Paul  could  and  did  apply  to  this 
"  new  birth,"  or  "  new  creation,"  of  the  Spirit,  all  the 
symbols  of  Jewish  poetry  concerning  the  "  redemption  " 
from  Egypt ;  he  used  in  addition  the  symbolism  of  the 

1  Cf.  Rom.  8:  26-29.     See  also  Jn.  15:  16ff.;  16:  8  and  the  arti- 
cle "The  'other'  Comforter"  in  Expositor  VIII,  82  (Oct.,  1917). 


110  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

mysteries  concerning  the  dedication  of  the  votary  to  the 
Savior-god,  whose  soldier,  slave,  or  freedman  he  be- 
comes. Christians  are  not  their  own,  but  bought  with 
a  price;  they  are  redeemed  with  the  precious  blood  of 
their  Leader ;  their  life  is  no  longer  their  owm  but  Christ 
that  lives  in  them ;  they  are  freedmen,  no  longer  under 
law,  and  yet  in  voluntary  obedience  to  the  "  law  of 
Christ."  All  these  expressions  and  more  are  made 
needful  by  the  double  necessity  of  reminding  his  con- 
verts of  their  duty  to  live  as  "  sons  and  daughters  of 
the  Highest,"  and  his  opponents  as  well  that  the  claim 
to  be  "  not  under  law  "  did  not  mean  without  law  to 
God,  but  under  law  to  Christ.  But  the  immeasurable 
superiority  of  Paul's  teaching  to  the  figures  of  speech 
which  he  borrows  from  Hellenistic  religion  is  instantly 
apparent  when  we  think  of  the  poor  and  empty  moral 
ideal  presented  to  the  votary  of  the  mysteries,  as  com- 
pared with  that  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  Imagine 
the  difference  between  being  infused  with  the  "  mind  " 
or  ethical  animus  of  Jesus,  and  the  mind  of  an  Attis, 
a  Dionysus,  an  Asclepios !  "  Partaking  in  the  nature 
of "  the  divinity,  "  life  in  the  Spirit,"  "  living  in 
Christ,"  "  living  the  life  that  is  hid  with  Christ  in 
God,"  are  all  terms  that  would  be  intelligible  to  the 
Hellenistic  religionist,  perhaps  more  so  than  to  the 
average  Jew.  But  what  would  they  all  amount  to,  be- 
yond mere  magic  and  superstition,  if  the  convert  did 
not  know  what  manner  of  spirit  the  spirit  of  Jesus  was  ? 
Hence  the  story  of  Jesus'  blameless  life  was  indispensa- 
ble. At  least  the  spirit  which  controlled  it  and  made 
it  an  absolutely  God-devoted  life,  "  obedient  unto  death, 
yea  even  the  death  of  the  cross,"  must  be  made  un- 
mistakable. The  convert  must  understand  that  his 
death  with  Jesus  is  a  death  to  sin,  his  union  with  tlie 
risen  life  of  Jesus  a  participation  in  that  moral  union 
with  the  Father  which  was  achieved  in  the  absolute  self- 


THE  HEAVENLY  INTERCESSOR  111 

dedication  of  Jesus.  He  must  have  in  him  the  mind 
which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  which  is  epitomized 
in  the  portrait  of  the  Servant,  humbled  to  the  utter- 
most as  a  slave  for  the  many,-  undergoing  the  cross  at 
the  behest  of  God's  inscrutable  will,  in  order  that  God 
also  might  exalt  him,  and  make  him  vei-y  high. 

Thus  the  double  necessity  of  maintaining  the  moral 
standard  of  the  Church  from  within,  and  vindicating  it 
as  against  its  detractors  without,  led  Paul  inevitably 
to  lay  special  stress  upon  the  implications  of  baptism, 
and  this  in  turn  to  emphasis  upon  the  character  of 
Jesus.  Later  we  find  this  process  issuing  in  Gospels, 
which  like  the  Gospel  of  Mark,  describe  first  how  the 
baptism  of  Jesus  results  in  his  ministry  of  power  and 
goodness  in  Galilee,  then,  secondly,  his  martyrdom  in 
Jerusalem  in  devotion  to  the  cause  of  the  kingdom. 
With  Paul  it  was  inevitable  that  ethical  teaching  of  this 
kind  should  delineate  the  character  of  Jesus  in  terms  of 
the  Isaian  description  of  the  martyred  Servant,  as  we 
have  just  seen  to  be  the  case  in  his  exhortation  to  the 
Philippians  to  "  have  in  them  the  mind  which  was  also 
in  Christ  Jesus." 

Looking  back  at  the  process  by  which  the  figure  of 
Jesus  had  come  to  be  conceived  in  terms  such  as  the 
Isaian  description  of  the  martyred  Servant  even  before 
Paul  became  a  convert,  we  can  see  from  Paul's  own 
references  that  the  course  of  events  in  Jesus'  career 

2  Maurenbrocher,  Von  'S'azareth  nach  Golgatha,  1908,  p.  174, 
declares  that  according  to  Paul,  Jesus  was  actually  a  slave. 
This  shows  just  as  unenlightened  a  use  of  Paul's  expressions  in 
Phil  2:  7,  which  are  based  upon  Is.  53  (in  this  case  Is.  53:  11, 
LXX  iv  dovXevovra  iroWois)  as  in  the  case  of  defenders  of  the  doc- 
trine of  Jesus'  sinlessness,  who  imagine  Paul  enquiring  in  Naza- 
reth as  to  his  moral  conduct  in  boyhood,  in.-^tead  of  recognizing 
that  in  II  Cor.  5:21,  where  he  declares  that  Christ  "knew  no 
sin,"  he  is  simply  using  Is.  53:  9,  as  in  I  Pt  2 :  22.  The  strange 
expression  God  "  made  him  to  be  sin  "  may  even  be  a  direct  quo- 
tation of  Is.  53:  10;  for  the  Hebrew  has  literally  "when  thou 
shalt  make  his  soul  to  be  sin." 


112  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

must  have  been  substantially  as  follows:  After  his 
two-fold  vain  attempt  to  bring  Israel  by  repentance  and 
faith  into  reconciliation  with  God,  Jesus,  in  the  fare- 
well to  his  disciples  before  his  martyrdom,  took  pains 
to  impress  upon  them  in  terms  which  could  not  be,  and 
which  never  were  forgotten,  that  his  body  and  blood 
were  "  devoted  "  for  their  sakes.  In  Mark's  descrip- 
tion of  the  scene,  and  in  one  other  dependent  passage, 
this  evangelist  emplovs  the  single  Isaian  word  "  many  " 
(Mk.  14 :  24,  "  My  blood  shed  for  many  " ;  cf.  10 :  45). 
This  is  hardly  enough  to  warrant  the  belief  that  Jesus 
himself  specifically  quoted  the  Song  of  the  Suffering 
Servant.  However,  we  have  seen  abundant  reason  to 
think  that  Jesus  did  declare  that  he  went  to  his  death 
voluntarily  for  the  Kingdom's  sake,  making  his  martyr- 
dom a  sacrifice  to  God  for  the  restoration  of  His  favor; 
and  that  he  also  made  it  clear  that  he  believed  this  self- 
dedication  would  be  accepted,  since  he  made  the  occa- 
sion symbolic  of  a  meeting  again  at  the  heavenly  ban- 
quet of  the  redeemed.  The  age,  as  we  know,  was  satu- 
rated with  the  idea  of  the  efficacy  of  the  intercession  of 
martyrs.  It  was  familiar  with  the  theme  of  the  self- 
dedicating  intercession  of  Moses  for  the  sin  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  it  may  well  have  harbored  the  belief  apparent 
in  Fourth  Maccabees  and  the  Revelation  of  John,  in  an 
immediate  resurrection  of  those  whose  lives  were  given 
in  martyrdom,  so  that  "  they  are  already  standing  be- 
fore the  throne  of  God."  It  would  have  been  a  marvel 
if  in  such  an  age  the  followers  of  the  Crucified  had  not 
connected  his  assurance  with  the  prophecy  of  the  suffer- 
ing Servant,  exalted  and  lifted  up  to  be  a  Priest  for 
many  nations,  delivered  up  for  the  transgression  of  Je- 
hovah's people,  made  a  sin-oft'ering  to  take  away  the 
sin  of  many,  and  interceding  for  the  transgressors. 

The  week  following  the  fateful  Passover  in  Jerusa- 
lem finds  Peter  a  fugitive  in  Galilee,  broken-hearted 


THE  HEAVENLY  INTEKCESSOK  113 

with  shame  and  despair."*  Practically  all  we  kuow  of 
the  spiritual  crisis  which  led  him  tt)  "  turn  again,  ami 
strengthen  his  brethren  "  is  what  Paul  tells  us.  It  is 
apparent,  however,  from  the  comparison,  that  Peter's 
experience  was  parallel  to  Paul's  own.  ]^or  can  we 
stop  here.  We  have  seen  that  Paul's  vision  presupposes 
the  latent  presence  of  its  elements  in  his  own  mind.  So 
was  it  in  Peter's  case  also.  When  the  waters  of  despair 
seemed  to  have  gone  over  his  soul  his  mind  recalled  the 
words,  "  Simon,  I  have  prayed  for  thee."  So  with 
later  visions.  What  all  see  is  the  Christ  who  had  prom- 
ised to  make  their  cause  his  own  in  the  presence  of  the 
Father,  standing  there  doing  as  he  had  said.  The  next 
step  is  the  gathering  of  twelve  (doubtless  former  dis- 
ciples)* whom  Peter  now  "strengthened,"  and  whose 
inward  vision  was  quickened  to  see  what  Peter  had  al- 
ready seen.  After  that  we  hear  of  "  five  hundred  at 
once  "  having  the  same  experience.  Since  this  implies 
some  general  rendezvous  such  as  must  have  taken  place 
before  the  migration  to  Jerusalem,  and  since  it  is  fol- 
lowed by  the  vision  of  James  and  "  all  the  Apostles," 
whom  we  find  not  long  after  established  in  Jerusalem 
(Gal.  1 :  17,  19),  we  may  reasonably  conjecture  that  it 
took  place  when  the  company  of  believers  went  up  to- 
gether at  the  ensuing  Pentecost,  expecting  the  Lord's 
return.  We  can  imagine  them  camping  at  the  fords  of 
Jordan  where  John  had  baptized,  and  there  adopting 
for  the  brotherhood  the  rite  which  we  know  was  adopted 
at  about  this  time  as  a  command  of  the  risen  Christ. 
Coincidently  with  the  baptism,  or  perhaps  shortly  after, 
at  Jerusalem,  when  Pentecost  was  fully  come,  the  mani- 

3  For  the  date  see  Ev.  Petri,  close.  This  perhaps  represents  the 
lost  ending  of  Mark. 

4  "The  twelve"  of  I  Cor.  15:5  can  hardly  be  identified  with 
the  eleven  enumerated  in  the  Gospel  lists.  It  is  more  probable 
that  the  fixed  number  "  twelve  "  dates  from  the  rallying  by  Peter, 
and  is  carried  back  in  the  lists  (whose  names  vary)  to  the  days 
of  Jesus'  ministry. 


114  JESUS    AND    PATJL 

festation  was  given  of  which  Paul  speaks.  The  five 
hundred  became  witnesses.  Either  now,  or  almost  at 
once  thereafter,  the  Spirit  came  upon  them  and  they 
spake  with  tongues. 

It  is  after  this,  and  after  two  further  appearances, 
first  to  James,  then  to  "  all  the  apostles,"  ^  that  the  ex- 
perience of  Paul  begins.  Certainly  there  was  sufiicient 
interdependence  here  to  account  for  a  basic  unity  in  the 
conception.  As  we  have  seen,  the  unifying  factors  are 
on  the  one  side  the  parting  message  of  Jesus,  on  the 
other  the  figure  of  the  suffering  Servant,  making  recon- 
ciliation for  sin  as  he  stands  exalted  in  the  presence  of 
God.  Did  Peter  perhaps  hear  it  read  on  that  Sabbath 
after  the  days  of  Unleavened  Bread  as  it  still  reads  in 
the  Aramaic  targum:  "Behold  my  Servant  the  Mes- 
siah shall  prosper.  He  shall  be  high,  and  increase  and 
be  exceeding  strong  "  ?  It  continiies  after  a  descrip- 
tion of  Israel's  humiliation :  "  then  for  our  sins  he  will 
pray,  and  our  iniquities  for  his  sake  shall  be  forgiven. 
All  we  like  sheep  had  been  scattered.  We  had  each 
wandered  off  on  his  own  way.  But  it  was  the  Lord's 
good  pleasure  to  forgive  the  sins  of  all  of  us  for  his 
sake.  He  prayed  and  was  answered,  and  ere  even  he 
had  opened  his  mouth  he  was  acce])ted."  Of  the  de- 
liverance which  should  follow  the  suffering  the  Targum 
has  this  to  say:  "It  is  the  Lord's  good  pleasure  to 
test  and  to  purify  the  remnant  of  his  people  so  as  to 
cleanse  their  souls  from  sin.  These  shall  look  on  the 
kingdom  of  their  Messiah.  .  .  .  From  the  subjection 
of  the  nations  he  will  deliver  their  souls.  By  his  wis- 
dom he  will  hold  the  giiiltlcss  free  from  guilt,  to  bring 
many  into  subjection  to  the  Law,  and  for  their  sins 
he  will   intercede.  .  .  .  He  si i all  intercede  for  many 

■J  In  Paul's  use  of  the  term  "  Apostle  "  it  covers  many  outside 
the  numher  of  "  the  twelve,"  includiii;;  besides  himself  such  names 
its  Silvanus,  and  even  Andronicus  and  Junias. 


THE  HEAVENLY  INTEECESSOK  115 

sins;  yea,  even  the  rebellious  for  his  sake  shall  be  for- 
given." 

But  however  clearly  we  demonstrate  that  the  Christol- 
ogy  of  Paul  and  that  of  his  predecessors  in  the  gospel 
has  this  common  starting-point  of  the  exalted  Inter- 
cessor, whose  life  was  made  a  sin-offering  on  our  be- 
half, there  is  no  denying  that  there  is  broad  difference ; 
and  again  we  plead  for  observance  of  the  distinction 
between  Paul's  gospel  and  Paul's  apologetic.  We  find 
in  Paul  not  one  application  to  Jesus  of  the  ancient  title 
of  "  the  Servant."  It  only  remains  in  four  vestigial 
survivals  in  the  Petrine  speeches  in  Acts,  and  a  half- 
dozen  more  in  the  most  ancient  liturgical  fragments. 
Elsewhere  Jesus  is  spoken  of  as  ''  the  Son,"  even  when 
(as  in  the  story  of  the  Voice  from  Heaven  at  the  bap- 
tism) the  passage  from  Isaiah,  "  Behold  my  Servant 
whom  I  have  chosen.  My  Beloved,  on  whom  I  set  my 
good  pleasure,"  has  to  be  altered  to  the  form,  "  behold 
my  Son  whom  I  have  chosen."  ^  Not  only  the  title  is 
later  disused,  the  conception  of  forgiveness  because  of 
the  vicarious  suffering  of  the  Servant  disappears.  It 
has  vanished  entirely'  from  the  Lukan  writings,  w^iich 
use  over  and  over  again  the  Isaian  prophecy  of  the  suf- 
fering of  the  Christ,  but  never  connect  it  with  forgive- 
ness of  sin.  In  Mt.  8:  17  we  actually  find  the  central 
passage  of  the  Pauline  doctrine  "  He  hath  borne  our 
griefs  and  carried  our  sorrows  "  translated :  "  He  hath 
borne  our  sickness  and  carried  our  diseases  "  and  ap- 
plied to  physical  healing.  Only  in  the  words  of  the 
Sacrament  itself,  together  with  one  connected  passage 
of  Mark,   is  the  idea  of  forgiveness  for  the  sake  of 

G  Sap.  Sal.  which  likewise  develops  the  Isaian  figure  of  the 
martyred  Servant,  making  him  the  hero  of  "faith''  (3:9; 
!r):2(i),  uses  interchangeably  "son"    {vlos)    and  "servant." 


116  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

Christ's  suffering  permitted  to  remain  —  and  even  here 
it  is  cancelled  by  Luke. 

The  explanation  of  this  must  be  sought  in  the  un- 
avoidable exposure  of  the  Isaian  doctrine  to  abuse,  espe- 
cially when  (as  in  the  Markan  form  of  expression  "  a 
ransom  instead  of  [dvTi]  many  ")  it  becomes  a  doctrine 
of  substitution  of  the  innocent  for  the  guilty.  It  is 
significant  that  Paul  always  avoids  this.  He  speaks 
only  of  a  sacrifice  "  for  "  (Trcpi)  sin,'^  and  of  Christ's 
suffering  "for  our  advantage"  (Wp).  We  have  seen 
already  what  pains  he  takes  to  guard  against  the  danger 
(both  from  within  and  from  without)  of  misrepresenta- 
tion on  this  score.  It  is  hardly  matter  for  surprise  that 
in  the  period  of  reaction  to  neo-legalism  which  set  in 
after  the  death  of  Paul  the  doctrine  of  "  grace  "  in  the 
strongly  "  evangelical  "  form  (to  use  a  modern  expres- 
sion) should  have  become  still  further  obscured. 

We  may  properly  compare  this  obscuration  to  the 
obsolescence  of  another  title  at  a  date  so  early  as  to 
include  the  Pauline  writings  themselves.  The  title  Son 
of  Man,  which  has  been  called  "  the  favorite  self-desig- 
nation of  Jesus,"  disappears  in  later  times  because  the 
conception  of  the  risen  Lord  which  it  connotes  became 
eclipsed  in  favor  of  one  more  acceptable  to  the  Greek- 
speaking  Church.  In  this  case  Paul  not  only  drops  the 
expression,  which  would  be  at  least  as  difficult  to  explain 
to  Gentile  converts  as  "  the  Servant,"  but  recasts  the 
thought  itself.  It  is  not  that  he  would  ignore  the  Son 
of  Man  doctrine,  which  unquestionably  played  an  im- 
portant part  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  and  was  essential 
to  Paul's  own  conception  of  the  ultimate  triumph  of  the 
kingdom,  but  that  he  would  blend  it  with  a  form  of 
teaching  more  congenial  to  the  Hellenistic  world,  the 
quasi-philosophical  doctrines  of  the  Wisdom  writers, 
and  so  make  it  intelligible.  Had  any  convert  asked 
7  The  regular  Septuagint  form. 


THE    HEAVENLY    INTEKCESSOB  117 

Paul  the  meaning  of  the  title  "  Christ,"  he  would  of 
course  have  been  obliged  to  explain  that  "  according  to 
the  flesh  "  Jesus  had  been  born  of  the  seed  of  David 
and  was  really  the  fulfillment  of  the  national  hope  of  the 
Jews,  though  not  as  the  Jews  themselves  understood  it. 
He  would  also  have  added  that  even  if  he  had  known 
such  a  Christ,  yet  now  he  would  know  such  a  Messiah 
no  more.  The  title  Son  of  David  is  to  Paul  completely 
obsolete,  that  of  Son  of  Man  survives  only  in  altered 
form. 

But  Jesus  himself  had  as  it  were  set  these  two  in  appo- 
sition. He  did  go  up  to  Jerusalem  claiming  national 
leadership  as  Son  of  David,  but  not  without  plain  warn- 
ing to  his  followers  that  it  might  be  given  him  only  as  it 
is  given  in  the  vision  of  Daniel  by  the  Ancient  of  Days 
to  one  "  like  unto  a  Son  of  man  "  brought  upon  the 
clouds  of  heaven. 

There  are  many,  including  those  of  the  most  radical 
school,  who  believe  that  at  Jerusalem  before  his  bitterest 
opponents  in  the  temple  Jesus  himself  purposely  raised 
the  question  of  Messiah's  descent  from  David,  in  order 
that  he  might  confound  them  by  quoting  the  coronation 
Psalm  of  Simon  the  Maccabee: 

Jehovah  said  unto  my  lord :     Sit  at  my  right  hand, 
Till  I  make  thine  enemies  the  footstool  of  thy  feet. 

For  my  own  part  I  cannot  regard  this  addendum  of 
Mark  to  the  series  of  debates  in  the  temple  with  the 
Pharisee,  Sadducee,  and  Scribe,  as  authentic.  It  seems 
to  be  a  mere  anticipation  of  one  of  the  earliest  proof- 
texts  of  the  resurrection  constantly  employed  after 
Jesus'  death  both  by  Paul  and  all  other  New  Testa- 
ment writers.  Use  of  it  by  Jesus  in  this  way  seems  to 
me  in  the  last  degree  improbable.  I  cannot  conceive 
him  publicly  debating  against  the  scribes  whether  his 
claims  to  Messiahship  should  be  based  on  his  descent 


118  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

from  David,  or  rather,  as  Paul  says,  on  his  raising  from 
the  dead  by  the  power  of  God  to  sit  at  His  own  right 
hand. 

But  the  later  raising  of  this  issue  is  no  reason  for 
questioning  Jesus'  conviction  that  God  would  give  him 
the  kingdom  as  Son  of  Man,  if  Israel  refused  it.  The 
use  of  the  title  in  the  earliest  Synoptic  sources  makes 
Jesus'  application  of  it  in  some  sense  to  himself  ex- 
tremely probable.  Certainly  it  leaves  no  room  for 
doubt  that  to  Paul,  and  even  to  Paul's  predecessors  in 
the  faith,  this  Maccabean  Psalm,  of  which  the  writer 
of  Hebrews  in  particular  makes  such  elaborate  develop- 
ment, was  a  prophecy  of  the  glorification  of  Jesus  as 
the  second  "  Man,"  the  heavenly  Heir  of  the  Kingdom. 

Another  example  of  Pauline  change  of  form  obscur- 
ing for  us  identity  of  substance  with  Synoptic  teaching 
is  the  representation  of  Christ's  conquest  of  the  demonic 
powers.  It  is  a  striking  fact  that  neither  Paul,  nor  the 
fourth  evangelist  has  any  direct  reference  to  exorcism. 
In  both  these  writers  exorcism  is  the  casting  out  of  the 
Prince  of  this  world  from  his  usurped  domain.  As  in 
Apocalypse  generally,  the  conflict  is  transcendental ized. 
Our  wrestling  is  not  with  flesh  and  blood,  but  with  the 
principalities  and  powers  in  the  heavenly  places.  The 
enemies  that  Christ  subdues  are  the  personified  powers 
of  sin  and  death,  the  enemies  of  humanity,  not  the  mere 
oppressors  of  Israel  nor  obsessing  evil  spirits. 

But  in  Synoptic  story  also  Jesus  appeals  to  his  own 
exorcisms  as  an  evidence  that  the  promised  reign  of 
God  is  already  potentially  present,  since  it  is  nothing 
else  but  the  Spirit  of  God  which  by  his  agency  is  over- 
coming the  strong  man  armed,  and  making  spoil  of  his 
household.  If  we  accept  the  story  of  the  ''  travel  docu- 
ment "  in  Acts,  Paul  also  could  have  appealed  to  exor- 
cisms of  his  own.  But  Paul,  as  I  have  said,  prefers  to 
transcendentalize.     One  reason  mav  well  be  the  dubious 


THE    HEAVENLY    INTEKCESSOE  119 

nature  of  this  kind  of  mighty  work,  which  did  not  stand 
in  the  best  repute  with  the  enliglitened,  whether  among 
Jews  or  Greeks.  A  better  reason  might  be  found  by 
analogy  of  Paul's  subordination  of  the  spectacular  gifts 
of  the  Spirit  to  its  inwardly  working  moral  powers,  his 
sense  of  religious  values.  But  perhaps  after  all  the  best 
is  that  the  two  prophecies  which  to  his  mind  most 
clearly  express  Christ's  conquest  of  the  powers  of  evil 
both  refer,  as  Paul  understands  them,  to  that  overthrow 
of  the  powers  of  darkness  which  is  effected  by  the  resur- 
rection. In  the  Septuagint,  which  is  Paul's  version  of 
the  Song  of  the  Exalted  Servant,  the  poet  declares  that 
"  Because  his  soul  was  delivered  up  to  death,  therefore 
he  shall  inherit  many,  and  shall  divide  the  spoil  of  the 
strong."  In  his  repeated  employment  of  the  figure  of 
the  risen  Christ  leading  in  triumph  the  released  captives 
of  the  underworld,  and  distributing  the  spoil  of  tlie 
demonic  powers  Paul  shows  that  he  understands  this 
passages  as  the  Septuagint  translator  did,  that  the  Serv- 
ant receives  as  his  portion  "  many  "  who  had  been  the 
captives  of  the  Powers  of  darkness.  It  is  so  understood 
in  the  Tcstaynents  of  the  XII  Patriarchs,  and  by  the 
second  century  Pathers.  In  fact  this  "  spoiling  "  of  the 
last  enemy,  and  deliverance  of  "  us  his  captives  "  be- 
comes the  doctrine  which  in  mediaeval  times  receives  the 
designation:  The  Harrowing  of  Hell.  When  in  the 
great  resurrection  chapter  of  First  Corinthians  and  else- 
where Paul  also  uses  the  language  of  Ps.  110  to  describe 
Christ's  session  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  "  from  hence- 
forth expecting  until  his  enemies  be  made  his  footstool  " 
he  explicitly  defines  the  last  "  enemy  "  to  be  Death.  So 
also  in  Ephesians  he  uses  Ps.  68,  the  triumph-song  "  Let 
God  arise,  let  his  enemies  be  scattered,"  to  set  forth  his 
idea  of  Christ  ascending  to  Heaven  and  distributing 
gifts  to  men  as  the  conqueror  "  distributes  spoil."  All 
this  is  so  different  from  the  Synoptic  proof  of  the  near- 


120  JESUS    AND    PAUI. 

ness  of  the  kingdom  based  on  the  exorcisms  of  Jesus 
that  we  scarcely  recogiiize  the  fundamental  identity. 
Yet  this  "  spoiling "  of  the  demonic  powers  is  really 
Paul's  equivalent  for  it,  as  the  language  proves.  It  is, 
so  to  speak,  his  translation  into  terms  of  apocalypse  of 
Jesus'  parable  of  the  Strong  Man  Armed,  whose  usurped 
domain  is  broken  by  the  Spirit  of  God.  The  interme- 
diate stage  is  the  application  to  the  raising  up  of  Jesus 
of  the  songs  of  the  Exaltation  of  the  Servant,  the  en- 
thronement of  the  Messiah,  and  the  Triumph  of  the 
Champion  of  Jehovah.^ 

2.  Jesus  as  Son  of  Man 

In  what  is  perhaps  the  earliest  Christian  writing  we 
possess  Paul  gives  an  account  of  his  o^vn  missionary 
preaching  in  briefest  possible  compass.  He  reminds  the 
Thessalonians  in  his  first  letter  what  manner  of  entering 
in  he  had  unto  them,  how  they  "  turned  from  idols  to 
serve  a  living  and  true  God,  and  to  wait  for  His  Son 
from  Heaven,  even  Jesus  which  delivereth  us  from  the 
wrath  to  come."  Compare  this  with  the  famous  account 
in  Acts  of  Paul's  preaching  at  Athens  only  a  few  weeks 
before.  The  closer  your  study  of  the  outline,  the  more, 
I  think,  you  will  be  struck  with  the  extraordinary  like- 
ness. At  first  one  is  disposed  to  think  it  must  be  due 
to  actual  report,  though  in  other  cases  "  Luke  "  seems 
to  follow  the  well-known  Thucydidean  method  of  com- 
posing such  material.  Further  study,  however,  reveals 
the  fact  that  the  resemblance  is  not  confined  to  Paul  and 
Luke.  What  we  have  is  simply  what  Harnack  calls  a 
herygma,  a  more  or  less  stereotyped  outline  of  mission- 
ary preaching,  easily  traceable  back  into  pre-Christian 
times,  and  showing  many  early  Christian  parallels  not 
based  either  on  Paul  or  Acts.  This,  then,  is  one  of  the 
rare  glimpses  Paul  affords  us  of  his  gospel,  as  distin- 

8ls.  63:  11    (LXX)  ;  Ps.  110:  1;  Ps.  68:  19. 


THE    HEAVENLY    INTERCESSOH  121 

guished  from  his  apologetic.  And  if  the  note  of  "  rec- 
onciliation "  is  dominant  (as  we  should  expect)  in  the 
clause  '•'  which  delivereth  us  from  the  wrath  to  come," 
it  is  scarcely  less  so  than  the  note  of  apocalypse,  the 
Pauline  form  of  the  Son  of  Man  doctrine,  which  in  the 
version  of  Acts  becomes  "  God  now  commandeth  men 
that  they  should  all  everywhere  repent;  inasmuch  as 
He  hath  appointed  a  day  in  the  which  He  will  judge 
the  world  in  righteousness  by  a  man  whom  He  hath 
ordained." 

Paul  naturally  does  not  quote  the  Book  of  Daniel  to 
his  Greek  converts.  On  the  other  hand  he  is  far 
from  concealing  from  them  that  they  are  to  stand  every 
one  of  them  "  before  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ." 
Whether  the  elaboration  of  the  Anti-Christ  legend,  with 
its  little  apocalypse  of  the  "  mystery  of  iniquity  "  in 
Second  Thessalonians,  is  really  Paul's  is  doubtful.  It 
is  quite  unparalleled  elsewhere.  It  must  also  be  al- 
lowed that  there  is  an  unmistakable  advance  in  Paul's 
eschatology  from  these  earliest  Thessalonian  letters,  to 
Philippians  with  its  expectation  of  departure  "  to  be 
with  Christ."  Paul's  doctrine  of  immortality  by  pro- 
gressive transformation  of  the  body  through  the  indwell- 
ing Spirit  into  the  image  of  the  glorified  Lord,  has 
really  made  his  inherited  Jewish  eschatology  super- 
jfluous  long  before  either  he  or  the  Church  is  aware  of 
the  fact;  and  the  process  of  its  falling  away  is  traceable 
in  his  own  epistles.  The  Ephesian  canon,  with  its 
curious  inclusion  of  the  two  extremes  of  Hellenistic 
and  Jewish-Christian  eschatology  in  the  fourth  Gospel 
and  the  Apocalypse  respectively,  shows  the  division 
much  further  advanced.  But  it  would  be  superfluous 
to  show  how  profoundly  Paul  is  imbued  with  the  spirit 
and  the  doctrine  of  Jewish  apocalypse.  Nor  will  there 
be  any  disposition,  in  our  time  at  least,  to  deny  that  in 
this  he  fully  reflects  his  predecessors  in  the  preaching  of 


122  JESUS    AND    PAUL. 

the  faith.  The  only  question  will  be  as  to  the  extent  to 
which  the  admittedly  one-sided  "  millenarianism  "  (to 
use  a  modern  term)  of  the  primitive  Church  represents 
the  mind  of  the  Master.  Was  Jesus  "an  ecstatic"? 
Did  the  belief  in  his  calling  to  be  supernatural  Son  of 
Man  so  predominate  in  his  mind  as  to  control  his  mes- 
sage? I  have  admitted  that  it  seems  to  me  impossible 
to  account  for  Synoptic  use  of  the  title  Son  of  Man  with- 
out supposing  Jesus  to  have  made  appeal  to  the  Daniel ic 
prophecy  as  having  real  application  to  himself  as  the 
nation's  divinely  intended  leader  and  representative,  so 
that  if  rejected  here  he  and  his  associates  would  receive 
their  vindication  in  the  presence  of  God.  Also  that  he 
used  the  language  of  Daniel  about  receiving  the  ever- 
lasting dominion  in  presence  of  the  heavenly  court,  and 
the  language  of  Ps.  122  about  sitting  with  the  Twelve 
on  the  thrones  of  judgment  in  the  new  Jerusalem,  "  even 
the  thrones  of  the  house  of  David."  But  this  does  not 
prove  him  an  eschatological  fanatic,  any  more  tfcan  his 
saying  to  the  Twelve  on  one  occasion  "  I  beheld  Satan 
as  lightning  fallen  from  heaven  "  proves  him  "  an  ec- 
static." Jewish  teachers,  if  no  others,  must  be  allowed 
some  little  degree  of  poetic  and  figurative  use  of  their 
own  Scriptures.  I  must  commend  the  judicious  lec- 
tures of  von  Dobschiitz,  delivered  here  in  the  summer  of 
1909,  as  showing  a  more  historical  appreciation  of 
"  The  Eschatology  of  the  Gospels  "  than  the  school  of 
J.  Weiss,  Wrede,  and  Schweitzer,  which  has  enjoyed 
such  sudden  popularity. 

It  is  to  the  problematical  Second,  or  Teaching 
Source  (Q),  that  we  must  look  for  our  most  important 
evidence  on  the  use  of  the  title  Son  of  Man  in  the  earliest 
period ;  and  I  think  it  can  be  shown  that  the  Christology 
of  this  source  is  not  apocalyptic.  On  the  contrary  its 
conception  of  the  work  and  personality  of  Jesus  is  that 
of  the  appealing,  winning.  Wisdom  of  God,  rejected  by 


THE.    HEAVENLY    INTERCESSOR  123 

wayward  men,  but  destined  in  the  end  to  restore  the 
world.  This  Wisdom  of  God  "  which  in  every  genera- 
tion entering  into  holy  souls  maketli  men  to  be  prophets 
and  friends  of  God,"  as  Wisdom  of  Solomon  has  it, 
makes  its  supreme  appeal  in  Jesus,  according  to  the 
Teaching  Source ;  and  this  "  glad  tidings  to  the  poor," 
this  offer  to  all  the  weary  and  heavy  laden  of  rest  for 
their  souls  under  her  easy  yoke,  is  placed  in  intentional 
antithesis  with  the  Baptist's  terrifying  warning  of  judg- 
ment to  come.  John  the  Baptist  came  as  an  ascetic, 
with  notes  like  the  wailings  in  the  house  of  death.  The 
"  Son  of  Man  "  came  as  a  bridegroom  to  the  wedding 
feast,  with  a  message  joyous  as  nuptial  music  in  the  ears 
of  "  the  children  of  Wisdom."  We  shall  see  in  due  time 
that  the  conception  of  Christ  as  the  redeeming  Wisdom 
of  God  is  at  least  as  familiar  to  Paul  as  the  apocalyptic ; 
and  if  we  are  seeking  a  guide  in  this  perplexing  problem 
of  Jesus'  own  conception  of  his  person  and  work,  what 
better  can  we  expect  to  find  than  the  example  of  Paul  ? 
It  may  seem  as  though  we  were  attacking  our  prob- 
lem from  the  wrong  end  if  we  attempt  to  account  for  the 
striking  difference  of  Paul's  Christology  from  the  Syn- 
optic by  considering  first  his  "  conception  of  the  last 
things."  As  Baur  has  said,  the  Synoptic  Christology 
is  an  apotheosis  doctrine:  God  exalted  the  Servant  who 
had  been  obedient  unto  the  death  of  the  cross  to  His  own 
right  hand,  where  he  waits  to  receive  the  promised  king- 
dom, and  whence  he  will  bring  it  again  to  earth.  The 
drama  begins  and  ends  on  earth.  The  Christ  is  an 
earthly  man  who  for  a  time  is  made  heavenly.  Those 
who  are  faithful  to  him  will  reign  with  him  in  the  new 
and  glorified  Jerusalem.  Contrariwise  the,  Pauline 
Christology  is  an  incarnation  doctrine.  The  drama 
begins  and  ends  in  Heaven.  The  Christ  is  a  "  heavenly 
man  "  chosen  "  before  the  foundation  of  the  world,"  the 
"  firstborn  of  the  creation,"  the  agent  of  God  both  in 


124  JESTJS    AND    PAUL 

creation  and  redemption;  for  in  pursuance  of  his  con- 
sistent course  of  self-devotion  he  inverts  the  action  of 
the  earthly  first  Adam,  and  leads  back  the  race  to  the 
Paradise  from  which  it  fell,  restoring  the  immortality 
for  which  it  was  destined  by  the  Creator.  The  King- 
dom of  the  Messiah  is  only  preliminary  to  its  delivering 
up  to  God,  that  He  may  be  all  in  all.  The  redemption 
is  not  so  much  of  Israel  as  of  humanity.  The  first 
Adam  was  made  in  the  likeness  of  God,  but  counted 
equality  with  God  a  matter  to  be  seized  by  robbery ;  for 
when  Satan  said  "  ye  shall  be  as  God  knowing  good  and 
evil  "  he  put  forth  his  hand  to  seize  the  forbidden  fruit. 
The  second  Adam  likewise  was  made  in  the  same  image, 
but  sought  likeness  with  God  in  the  way  of  self-dedica- 
tion, forsaking  riches  to  become  poor  for  our  sakes, 
becoming  a  "  good  servant  of  the  many  "  even  to  suffer- 
ing and  death,  and  for  this  was  exalted  to  the  throne 
that  is  above  all.  Here  everything  is  transcendental- 
ized.  The  earthly  career  of  Jesus  is  a  mere  episode. 
The  beginning  and  end  of  the  drama  is  "  in  the  heav- 
enly places."  Is  there  anything  that  can  bridge  the 
chasm  between  two  conceptions  so  wide  apai't  as  the 
apotheosis  Christology  of  the  S^moptics  and  the  incar- 
nation Christology  of  Paul  ?  We  deem  that  there  is, 
and  that  the  two  spans  of  this  bridge  are  the  apocalyptic 
ideas  and  the  wisdom  ideas  which  are  common  to  both. 
Apocalypse  is  the  Jewish  substitute  for  philosophy. 
The  Gentiles  have  speculation,  God  has  given  His  own 
people  revelation.  As  the  Assunijdion  of  Moses  puts 
it:  "  God  created  the  world  on  behalf  of  His  people. 
But  He  was  not  pleased  to  manifest  this  desig-n  from  the 
foundation  of  the  world,  in  order  that  the  Gentiles 
might  convict  themselves  of  ignorance  by  their  vain 
speculations.  Hence  he  designed  and  devised  me 
(Moses)  and  prepared  me  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world,  that  I  should  be  the  mediator  of  his  covenant." 


.    THE    HEAVENLY    INTERCESSOE  125 

The  revelation  to  Moses  of  the  purpose  of  creation  as 
stated  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  is  that  man  (which 
Jewish  interpreters  take  as  righteous  and  redeemed 
mankind  subject  to  the  Messiah)  should  have  complete 
dominion  over  it.  The  Jewish  revelation  is  here  con- 
trasted w4th  Greek  cosmology.  Of  this  covenant  of  God 
to  make  His  people  heir  of  the  world,  a  covenant  re- 
newed to  iSToah  and  Abraham,  Moses  was  made  the 
mediator  in  the  revelation  at  Sinai.  The  mystery  hid 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world,  made  known  not  even 
to  angels,  is  the  divine  purpose  in  the  creation,  as  it  is 
written  "  things  which  eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard, 
nor  have  entered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  conceive,  even 
the  things  which  God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  love 
Him."  These  things  which  God  freely  gives  to  His 
people  are  the  subject  of  the  revelation.  Apocalypse 
concerns  itself  with  these,  l^oah,  Enoch,  Elijah, 
Moses,  all  the  men  who  have  been  taken  up  into  heaven 
are  permitted  to  see  the  inner  workings  of  the  creation 
both  physical  and  moral.  They  are  admitted  to  the 
council  chamber  of  the  Highest,  and  see  how  He  has  de- 
signed the  whole,  foreseeing  the  end  from  the  beginning 
and  forestalling  every  obstacle. 

It  belongs,  therefore,  to  the  very  nature  of  apocalypse 
that  it  sees  the  last  things  as  preexisteut  from  the  first. 
If  the  world  was  created  on  behalf  of  God's  people 
under  the  rule  of  their  Messiah,  then  God  must  have 
chosen  them  "  in  him  "  before  the  foundation  of  the 
world.  Israel  is  God's  First-born,  His  Only-begotten, 
for  whose  sake  He  created  the  world;  so  says  Esdras 
explicitly.^  All  these  titles  of  Israel  are  transferred  in 
the  singular  to  Messiah  as  the  representative  of  the  peo- 
ple. If  they  are  the  people  of  the  Saints  of  the  Most 
High,  the  Elect,  the  Beloved,  the  Just,  he  has  precisely 
these  titles,  resting  on  the  same  scriptures.     And  he  and 

8  Esdr.  6 :  55-59. 


126  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

thev  are  in  the  same  sense  preexistent.  Hence  the 
Greek  translators  of  the  Psalm  beginning  "  Jehovah 
said  unto  my  Lord,  Sit  at  my  right  hand,  till  I  make 
thine  enemies  thy  footstool,"  render  the  passage  jnst 
before  the  ascription  to  the  hero  of  the  everlasting  high- 
priesthood  of  Melchizedek:  "I  have  begotten  thee 
from  the  womb  before  the  morning  star."  Messiah 
cannot  be  the  omega  without  also  being  the  alpha. 
Israel  cannot  be  the  heir  of  the  creation  without  having 
also  existed  (in  God's  thought)  before  the  creation. 
Indeed  even  all  their  works  were  wrought  for  them,  as 
Isaiah  had  said  (Is.  26:12),  and  as  the  apocalyptic 
writers  and  Paul  are  careful  to  point  out  when  they 
wish  to  discourage  the  idea  of  merit. ^'^ 

This  is  not  mere  poetry.  It  is  the  Jewish  idea  of 
logic.  As  Harnack  clearly  sets  forth  in  a  valuable  Ap- 
pendix to  Vol.  I  of  his  History  of  Dogma  (p.  318) : 

According  to  the  theory  held  by  the  ancient  Jews,  and  by 
the  whole  of  the  Semitic  nations,  everything  of  real  value  that 
from  time  to  time  appears  on  earth  has  its  existence  in  heaven. 
In  other  words  it  exists  with  God,  that  is,  God  possesses  a 
knowledge  of  it ;  and  for  that  reason  it  has  a  real  being.  But 
it  exists  beforehand  with  God  in  the  same  way  that  it  appears 
on  earth,  that  is  with  all  the  material  attributes  belonging  to 
its  essence.  Its  manifestation  on  earth  is  merely  a  transition 
from  concealment  to  pixblicity  {4>av€pov<jOad  • 

The  great  denouement,  accordingly,  toward  which  the 
whole  creation  moves,  is  the  "  manifestation  of  the  sons 
of  God,"  those  whom  He  created  to  be  (as  Paul  says) 
"  heirs  of  the  world,  and  joint-heirs  with  Christ." 
Meantime  their  life  is  hid  with  Christ  in  God.  When 
Christ  who  is  their  life  shall  appear,  then  shall  they  also 
appear  with  him  in  glory.  When  a  Jewish  logician 
desires  to  express  his  sense  of  the  things  which  have  real 
value  he  mentions  seven  preexistent  things,  enumerating 

ioaiav.  En.  liii,  2;  Eph.  2:  10. 


THE    HEAVENLY    INTERCESSOR  127 

them  in  the  order  of  their  necessary  appearance  on  the 
earth  before  the  consummation.  They  are  given  with 
some  variation  as  follows :  The  Torah,  Repentance, 
Paradise,  Hell,  the  Throne  of  Glory,  the  Sanctuary, 
Messiah.  When  he  wishes  to  raise  hope  to  the  pitch  of 
certainty  he  says,  "  The  soul  of  Messiah  is  laid  up  in 
paradise  from  the  foundation  of  the  world."  Assur- 
ance is  made  doubly  sure  when  the  revelators  declare 
as  in  Enoch  that  they  have  seen  him  waiting  for  the 
time  of  his  appearance  in  the  treasure-house  of  souls. 
True  the  distinction  is  made  by  our  modern  theologians 
with  gi'eat  care  between  logical  and  real  preexistence. 
But  the  distinction  is  at  best  a  tenuous  one  and  in  prac- 
tice tends  to  disappear.  The  later  Jewish  mystics  de- 
pict the  Messiah  as  impatient  of  the  delay,  imploring 
to  be  sent  to  the  rescue  of  Israel.  Pseudo-Barnabas  al- 
ready quotes  an  Enoch-fragment  which  seems  to  be 
using  Ps.  102 :  13,  23  (LXX)  of  the  "  shortening  of 
the  time  to  have  pity  upon  Zion,"  as  in  the  Gospels  also 
the  days  of  waiting  are  "  cut  short."  According  to  Bar- 
nabas Enoch  had  said :  "  For  to  this  end  hath  the 
Master  cut  short  the  periods  and  the  days,  that  His 
Beloved  might  hasten  and  come  to  his  inheritance."  ^^ 
If  the  simple  narrative  of  the  Synoptic  evangelists  con- 
tains no  trace  of  the  doctrine  of  the  preexistence  save 
the  Voice  from  Heaven  at  the  Baptism,  which  declares 
the  fore-ordination  and  election  of  the  Beloved  in 
Pauline  terms :  "  Thou  art  my  Son,  the  Beloved ;  upon 
thee  my  choice  was  set,"  this  is  no  more  than  we  should 
expect  from  a  narrative  which  leaves  little  room  for 
theological  evaluation  of  the  scenes  elsewhere  than  in 
the  prologue.  But  Paul  has  both  room  and  occasion 
for  such  theological  evaluation ;  and  Paul's  equivalent 
for  the  Synoptic  passage  just  quoted  is  the  famous  verse 

11  See  the  article,  "  Heh.  1:  10-12  and  the  Septuagint  Reading 
of  Ps.  102  :  23  "  in  Z2\^W  III   ( 1902 ) ,  p.  180  ff. 


128  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

in  Colossians :  "  It  was  the  '  good-pleasure  '  that  the 
whole  pleroma  of  the  Spirit  should  take  up  its  abode 
in  the  Son  of  His  love,  in  whom  we  have  our  redemp- 
tion, the  forgiveness  of  our  sins.  For  he  is  the  Image 
of  the  invisible  God,  the  Firstborn  of  all  creation;  for 
in  him  were  all  things  created,  in  the  heavens  and  upon 
the  earth,  things  visible  aud  things  invisible,  whether 
thrones  or  dominions  or  principalities  or  powers;  all 
things  have  been  created  through  him  and  unto  him, 
and  in  him  all  things  consist." 

We  shall  see  presently  why  it  is  needful  for  Paul 
here  to  set  the  higher  sovereignty  (and  hence  by  Jewish 
logic  earlier  origin)  of  Christ  over  against  that  of  the 
angelic  hierarchies,  and  on  what  scriptural  basis  he 
rests  the  claim,  the  teachings  of  Hebrew  Wisdom,  But 
without  waiting  for  this  it  must  already  be  apparent 
that  Paul  could  not  be  a  believer  in  revelation  as  the 
Hebrew  understands  it, —  could  not  have  had  the  mys- 
tical experience  of  vision  of  the  "  Son  of  God  "  in  glory 
which  he  shared  with  his  predecessors  in  the  faith,  above 
all  could  not  possibly  have  taken  over  the  utterances  of 
Jesus  which  embodied  their  faith  in  him  as  the  Son  of 
Man  destined  to  appear  upon  the  clouds  of  Heaven  — 
without  constructing  from  this  as  the  very  basis  of  his 
world-view  a  doctrine  of  the  pre^'xistence  of  the  Christ. 
If  in  his  case  the  preexistence  of  the  Messiah  is  not  a 
mere  waiting  in  the  treasury  of  souls,  but  an  active 
particij^ation  in  the  work  both  of  creation  and  redemp- 
tion, tliis  comes  in  part  from  his  familiarity  with  the 
doctrine  of  the  Wisdom  writers  concerning  this  spiritual 
agent  of  God  in  the  work  of  creation,  revelation,  and 
redemption.  In  part  we  must  attribute  it  to  the  ne- 
cessity the  Apostle  is  under  of  conveying  to  his  converts 
from  the  Hellenistic  world  some  sense  of  the  values  repn 
resented  by  that  discarded  title  of  the  Christ,  "  the 
Son  of  Man."     As  we  have  seen,  the  Son  of  Man  is  for 


THE    HEAVENLY    INTERCESSOR  129 

Paul  the  head  of  that  humanity  that  is  to  be  in  "  the 
manifestation  of  the  sons  of  God."  He  is  that  spiritual 
second  Adam  who  was  before,  even  as  in  the  consum- 
mation he  comes  after,  the  natural  that  was  first.  It  is 
the  permeation  of  humanity  with  the  "  mind  "  that  was 
in  him  that  brings  the  triumph  of  the  Creator's  will, 
the  unification  and  reconciliation  of  all  in  the  spirit  of 
service.  Immortality  there  cannot  be  save  in  this 
spirit.  Individually  and  socially  the  mind  of  the  first 
Adam,  grasping  and  self-seeking,  is  death.  The  mind 
of  the  second  Adam,  created  anew  in  the  moral  likeness 
of  God,  is  life  and  peace. 

We  have  to  look  back  to  the  teaching  and  story  of 
Jesus  through  a  two-fold  translation  here.  We  see  it  as 
reflected  in  the  mind  of  a  Jewish  scribe,  defending  the 
truth  against  reaction  to  Jewish  legalism,  interpreting 
it  again  to  Gentiles  steeped  in  the  mysticism  of  the 
religions  of  personal  immortality.  But  would  our 
knowledge  of  the  abiding  values  of  that  teaching  and 
that  life  be  adequate  without  Paul  ?  Is  there  indeed 
any  evangelist,  save  the  great  disciple  of  Paul  at  Ephe- 
sus,  who  so  teaches  the  world  what  it  means  to  have 
had  a  Christ  in  their  midst  ? 

3.  Christ  as  the  Wisdom  of  God 

Little  time  indeed  remains  in  which  to  speak  of  the 
third  great  factor  in  Paul's  Christology,  the  conception 
which  he  takes  mainly  from  Hellenistic  Judaism  of  the 
saving  Wisdom  of  God.  Later  we  find  an  increasing 
disposition  to  substitute  the  infinitely  poorer  term  the 
Logos,  as  a  concession  to  Stoic  metaphysic.  Philo  be- 
gins the  change  for  Jewish  writers,  the  fourth  evangelist 
among  Christians.  But  the  moral  values  are  almost 
wholly  wanting  to  the  Greek  conception.  Heraclitus 
does  make  the  Logos  complain  of  human  neglect  in 
something  like  the  tones  of  the  Hebrew  plaints  of  Wis- 


130  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

dom,  but  the  resemblance  is  remote.  The  Stoic  pan- 
theist's conception  of  the  Logos  has  nothing  of  the  hu- 
man tenderness  of  the  brooding  Spirit  of  God,  whose 
voice  is  the  murmur  of  the  dove,  whose  wings  are 
stretched  protectingly  over  her  wa^'ward  young.  The 
Hebrew  conception  of  the  creative  Spirit  is  of  a  being 
whose  delight  is  with  men,  who  comes  forth  with  en- 
treaty to  save  them  from  the  error  of  their  ways,  long- 
ing for  their  return.  The  Stoic  Logos  compares  with 
this  as  the  physicist's  conception  of  the  ether  compares 
with  the  Christian's  belief  in  a  saving  Spirit  of  God  in 
Christ.  When  Paul  thinks  of  the  Wisdom  of  God,  he 
has  in  mind  that  which  the  writer  of  the  Wisdom  of 
Solomon  calls  "  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  which  hath  tilled 
the  world,  and  which  holdeth  all  things  together " 
(1:7),  she  that  was  the  artificer  of  the  creation,  and 
rejoiced  with  God  in  his  habitable  earth,  a  "  hidden 
wisdom  "  which  the  wise  of  the  world  cannot  search 
out,  but  which  as  a  saving  spirit  "  goeth  about  herself 
seeking  those  that  are  worthy  of  her ;  and  in  their  paths 
she  appeareth  unto  them  graciously"  (Sap.  6:10). 
Paul  thinks  of  the  Wisdom  of  God  as  "  a  holy  spirit, 
only-begotten  (/Aovoyevt's)  yet  manifold  .  .  .  beneficent, 
loving  toward  man,  all-powerful,  all-seeing,  pervading 
and  penetrating  all  things,  a  breathing  forth  of  the 
power  of  God  and  a  clear  etiiuence  of  the  glory  of  the 
Ahnighty,  an  effulgence  from  the  everlasting  light,  an 
unspotted  mirror  of  the  working  of  God,  and  an  image 
(etKwv)  of  Ilis  goodness."  Paul  thinks  of  this  Wisdom 
of  God  as  the  spirit  of  revelation  and  redemption,  which 
"  from  generation  to  generati(^n  passing  into  holy  souls 
maketh  men  to  be  friends  of  God  and  prophets."  He 
thinks  of  it  as  "  reaching  from  one  end  of  the  world  to 
the  otlier  with  full  strength  and  ordering  all  things 
graciously,"  He  believes  that  "  it  is  given  her  to  live 
with  God,  and  that  the  Sovereign  Lord  of  all  loved  her." 


THE    HEAVENLY    INTERCESSOR  131 

He  believes  with  the  Son  of  Sirach  that  this  spirit 
"  came  forth  from  the  mouth  of  the  Most  High  and 
covered  the  earth  as  a  mist,"  that  it  made  its  throne  in 
the  pillar  of  cloud  and  made  its  tabernacle  in  Israel,  in 
order  that  in  the  end  it  might  go  forth  to  the  world  as 
the  four  streams  from  Eden,  watering  all  lands,  "  bring- 
ing instruction  to  light  as  the  morning,  and  making 
Israel's  knowledge  of  God  to  shine  forth  afar  off."  He 
believes  with  Baruch  that  Israel's  calamities  came  when 
she  forsook  this  way  of  Wisdom,  even  as  the  nations 
perished  because  they  had  it  not.  With  Baruch  he  ex- 
claims in  the  words  of  Moses  concerning  the  Law: 
"  Who  hath  gone  up  into  Heaven  and  taken  her  and 
brought  her  down  from  the  clouds?  Who  hath  gone 
over  the  sea  and  found  her  and  will  bring  her  for  choice 
gold  ?  "  God  only  gives  this  spirit  of  his  own  knowl- 
edge and  goodness,  "  He  that  sendeth  forth  the  light 
and  it  goeth,  who  called  it  and  it  obeyed  Him  with  fear. 
He  hath  found  out  all  the  way  of  knowledge,  and  hath 
given  it  unto  Jacob  His  Servant,  and  to  Israel  that  is 
His  Beloved.  After  this  did  she  appear  upon  earth 
and  was  conversant  with  men."  ^^  Paul  believes  that 
this  creative  and  redemptive  Spirit,  this  spirit  of  the 
knowledge,  fear  and  love  of  God,  this  spirit  of  revela- 
tio'n  of  the  purpose  and  will  of  the  Creator,  so  hidden 
from  the  world,  is  the  special  endowment  of  Israel, 
whom  God  chose  for  this  very  purpose,  that  it  might 
be  His  Servant  to  bring  peace  and  reconciliation  with 
the  universal  Father  to  all  the  ends  of  the  earth  through 
the  knowledge  of  Him.  He  believes  that  this  eternal 
Spirit  tabernacled  for  the  redemption  of  humanity  in 
Israel  as  a  whole,  and  was  incarnate  in  successive  lead- 
ers of  Israel  by  divers  portions  and  in  divers  manners, 
in  Joseph,  in  Moses,  in  Solomon ;  for  this  is  the  belief 

12  The   quotations   are   made    in   abbreviated   form,    from    Sap. 
1:  7flf.,  6:  12ff.,  7:  21-8:  7;  Ecclus.  24;  and  Bar.  3:  9-37. 


132  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

of  the  Wisdom  writers  of  Paul's  time.  He  believes 
above  all  that  the  Messiah,  the  supreme  representative 
of  Israel  as  Jehovah's  Servant  and  witness  to  the  na- 
tions, will  embody  all  the  hidden  treasures  of  wisdom 
and  knoweldge,  comparing  with  those  who  had  partial 
revelation  in  past  days  as  the  knowledge  of  a  beloved 
son  compares  with  that  of  servants  of  the  household; 
for  this  is  the  belief  of  the  vision  of  Enoch,  of  the  in- 
exhaustible fountain  of  righteousness  and  wisdom 
opened  for  all  the  thirsty  upon  earth  in  the  days  of  the 
Son  of  Man,  "  whose  name  was  named  before  the  sun 
and  the  constellations  were  created  in  the  presence  of 
the  Lord  of  Spirits,  the  Head  of  Days."  "  He  will  be 
the  light  of  the  Gentiles,  and  the  hope  of  those  who  are 
troubled  of  heart,"  says  Enoch.  "  All  who  dwell  on 
earth  will  fall  down  and  bow  the  knee  before  him,  and 
will  praise  the  Lord  of  Spirits.  And  for  this  reason 
hath  he  been  chosen  and  hidden  before  Him  before  the 
creation  of  the  world.  .  .  ."  For  when  the  Elect  One 
cometh  "  wisdom  is  poured  out  like  water,  and  glory 
faileth  not  before  him  for  ever  and  ever.  For  he 
standeth  before  the  Lord  of  Spirits,  and  in  him  dwells 
the  spirit  of  wisdom  and  the  Spirit  of  Him  who  gives 
knowledge,  and  the  spirit  of  understanding  and  of 
might,  and  the  spirit  of  those  who  have  fallen  asleep  in 
righteousness.  And  he  will  judge  the  secret  things  and 
no  one  will  be  able  to  utter  a  lying  word  before  him; 
for  he  is  the  Elect  One  before  the  Lord  of  Spirits  ac- 
cording to  his  '  good  pleasure.'  "  ^^ 

Combining  in  his  thought  the  conceptions  of  the 
apocalyptists  and  the  Wisdom  writers  as  they  are  com- 
bined in  the  passage  from  Enoch  I  have  just  quoted, 
how  was  it  possible  for  Paul  not  to  think  of  Christ  as 
the  personified  Wisdom  of  God  ?  Not  because  he  is  so 
18  Eth.  Enoch  xlvii-xlix  condensed. 


THE  HEAVENLY  INTERCESSOR  133 

filled  with  admiration  for  the  pure  ethics  and  the  lofty 
religious  teaching  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  (though 
I  grant  the  conception  would  hardly  seem  a  natural  one 
if  Paul  had  not  more  knowledge  than  he  displays  of 
these  sublime  teachings),  still  less  because  of  acquaint- 
ance with,  or  dependence  on  particular  writings  such  as 
the  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  and  the  philosophical  mysti- 
cism of  Philo,  though  I  think  it  would  be  easy  to  go 
further  than  Grafe  has  done  in  his  well  known  attempt 
to  prove  a  direct  dependence  of  Paul  on  Wisdom  of 
Solomon;  but  because  to  an  educated  Hellenistic  Jew 
such  as  Paul,  converted  by  such  an  experience  as  his 
to  belief  in  Jesus  as  the  exalted  Servant,  the  leader  of 
Israel  in  its  God-given  calling  to  bring  the  world  into 
reconciliation  with  God,  it  was  inevitable  that  he  should 
think  of  him  as  the  agent  of  God  in  creation,  revelation 
and  redemption.  As  such  it  is  inevitable  that  prayer  to 
God  should  be  offered  through  him  and  for  his  sake,  and 
answered  by  his  agency.  He  is  to  Paul  the  Son  of 
Man  who  was  "  begotten  before  the  morning  star," 
chosen  by  the  Lord  of  Spirits  and  hidden  before  Him 
before  the  creation  of  the  world,  who  stands  in  God's 
presence  as  the  Elect  of  His  good  pleasure  until  he  re- 
ceive his  kingdom  at  the  throne  of  the  Ancient  of  Days. 
Paul,  may,  or  may  not,  have  known  of  Philo's  employ- 
ment of  the  mythical  figure  of  the  primal  man,  made 
in  the  image  of  God  without  distinction  of  sex,  before 
the  creation  of  the  earthly  Adam,  destined  to  dominion 
over  the  creation ;  but  he  certainly  believes  in  a  Man 
from  Heaven  who  is  to  be  "  manifested,"  and  he  could 
not  fail  to  identify  the  Spirit  of  the  exalted  Servant 
who  became  obedient  unto  death  for  the  reconciliation 
and  redemption  of  the  world  with  that  eternal  Spirit, 
the  Firstborn,  Only-begotten  and  Beloved  of  God,  who 
is  His  agent  in  the  creating  and  ordering  of  the  world 


134  JESUS    AND    PATJL. 

no  less  than  in  its  redemption  and  reconciliation  to  Him- 
self. These  are  not  isolated,  individual  ideas.  They 
are  the  guiding  principles  of  the  highest  messianic  ideal- 
ism of  Paul's  times. 

With  all  this  I  cannot  avoid  the  feeling  that  my 
hearers  look  upon  all  this  higher  Christology  of  Paul 
as  a  "  speculative  interpretation."  No  misapprehen- 
sion could  be  greater.  We  are  unfamiliar  with  con- 
temporary Jewish  modes  of  thought.  Their  personifi- 
cations taking  the  place  of  abstractions,  their  visions  in- 
stead of  logical  processes  are  alien  to  our  thinking. 
We  find  it  hard  to  s^Tnpathize  with  a  m}i:hopoeic  type 
of  philosophical  reasoning  which  in  Philo  is  already 
receding  into  the  background,  though  even  in  Plato  is 
still  within  view.  Therefore  we  think  Paul  is  indulg- 
ing in  speculation,  when  in  reality  he  is  merely  making 
use  of  the  most  available  forms,  first  as  regards  his  own 
self-representation  of  the  eternal  sig-nificance  of  Jesus' 
person  and  ministry,  second  for  its  presentation  to  his 
converts.  That  presentation  of  the  Beloved,  "  in  whom 
we  have  our  redemption,  the  forgiveness  of  our  sins  "  as 
"  the  Image  of  the  invisible  God,  the  Firstborn  of  all 
creation,  in  whom  all  things  visible  and  invisible, 
whether  thrones  or  dominions  or  principalities  or  pow- 
ers, w^ere  created,"  was  addressed  to  the  Colossians,  a 
body  of  converts  who  were  being  "  robbed  of  their  prize 
as  heirs  of  God,  by  a  gratuitous  self-humiliation  and 
worship  of  angels."  They  were  being  led  into  a  de- 
grading superstition  by  teachers  of  the  mongrel  type  of 
Jewish-heathen  theosophy  which  professed  to  have  deal- 
ings with  tlie  "  elemental  beings  of  the  world." 
Against  this  type  of  neo-Judaic  idolatry  Paul  falls  back 
upon  the  splendid  monotheism  of  the  creation  chapter 
of  Genesis,  with  its  exaltation  of  man  in  the  likeness 
of  God  as  true  lord  of  creation,  the  "  weak  and  beggarly 
elemental  beings  "  his  mere  stewards  and  guardians. 


THE  HEAVENLY  INTEBCESSOR  135 

Practical  monotheism  was  at  stake,  and  Paul's  instinct 
for  the  true  relictions  values  bids  him  reject  the  road 
of  compromise  along  which  the  Church  later  advanced 
so  far  under  the  lead  of  Arius,  It  bids  him  identify 
the  Heir  with  no  other  than  that  Firstborn  Wisdom  of 
God  who  is  "  before  all  things,  and  in  whom  all  things 
consist." 

It  is  not  a  speculative  but  a  practical  interest  that 
leads  Paul  to  supplement  Colossians  by  the  great  paral- 
lel epistle  on  the  Unity  of  the  Spirit,  known  to  us  as 
Ephesians.  In  its  opening  chapters  his  prayer  for  his 
converts'  enlightenment  to  appreciate  the  sublimity  of 
their  calling  rises  to  rhapsody  as  he  dwells  upon  the  gos- 
pel of  peace  and  reconciliation  by  which  God  through 
the  cross  has  slain  the  enmity  between  man  and  man  and 
man  and  God,  giving  all  access  in  one  new  Spirit  to  the 
Father.  But  the  Apostle  does  not  stop  with  this  theme 
of  the  building  of  the  new  temple  of  humanity;  he  goes 
on  to  make  practical  application  of  it  in  the  entreaty  to 
keep  this  unity  of  the  Spirit  in  the  bond  of  peace.  It  is 
a  practical  interest  which  leads  him  to  set  forth  how 
the  possession  of  one  Lord,  one  faith  and  one  baptism 
is  the  world's  real  hope  of  order  and  peace.  If  the 
Spirit  into  which  we  are  baptized  is  the  spirit  of  this 
common  Lord,  self-dedicated  to  the  world-dominion  of 
the  God  of  righteousness  and  concord,  we  have  the 
higher  loyalty  which  can  and  will  break  down  the 
enmity  between  man  and  man,  in  the  relations  of  do- 
mestic life,  social  and  industrial  life,  political  life,  even 
as  it  breaks  down  the  enmity  between  man  and  God. 
It  is  a  practical  matter  for  Paul,  and  not  less  practical 
for  us,  whether  that  life  in  the  Spirit  to  which  the  fol- 
lower of  Jesus  is  dedicated  is  or  is  not  the  ultimate  goal 
of  human  aspiration,  both  for  the  individual  and  for 
humanity  as  a  whole. 

There  may  be  those  who  can  conceive  of  Christianity 


136  JESUS    AND    PAUL, 

as  the  mere  following  of  a  high  moral  example.  As  for 
myself  I  see  not  how  it  is  possible  for  Christianity  to 
be  a  world-religion  (or  indeed,  to  be  a  religion  at  all), 
unless  the  Spirit  of  Christ,  into  which  our  own  person- 
ality is  merged  in  a  self-dedication  answering  to  his 
own,  be  nothing  less  than  the  eternal  Spirit  of  the  Cre- 
ator and  Father  of  all,  the  Spirit  of  righteousness  and 
love.  For  in  all  tlie  cosmos  of  life  to  which  our  sense 
extends  there  is  but  one  body,  and  one  ordering  and  re- 
deeming Spirit,  even  as  we  were  called  in  one  hope  of 
our  calling.  There  is  one  Lord  to  whom  all  loyalty  is 
due,  one  faith,  one  baptism.  There  is  one  God  and 
Father  of  all,  who  is  above  all  and  through  all  and  in  all. 
In  this  unity  of  the  eternal  Spirit  lies  our  eternal  gospel 
of  peace. 


LECTUKE  VI 

BACK    TO    GALILEE*       THE    WITNESS    OF    PETEE 

1.  Gospels  as  the  New  Standard  of  Teaching 

It  is  difficult  to  withstand  the  sense  of  shock  and 
change  as  one  passes  from  the  soaring  imagination  of 
Paul  in  Romans,  Colossians,  Ephesians,  to  the  simple 
narrative  of  Mark.  It  is  true  the  evangelist  also  aims 
to  set  forth  Jesus  as  "  the  Son  of  God,"  ^  and  prefaces 
his  narrative  with  a  quasi-theological  vision-story  in 
which  a  Voice  from  Heaven  proclaims  him  such.  But 
there  is  a  difference  between  prologue  and  narrative. 
The  evangelist  tells  the  story  of  the  Baptism  in  a  way 
to  make  clear  that  John  was  the  expected  Elijah,  whose 
function  in  Jewish  eschatology  was  to  anoint  the  Mes- 
siah, before  which  anointing  he  would  be  unknown  even 
to  himself.  The  story  goes  on  in  a  form  corresponding 
to  the  Isaian  Servant-song : 

Behold  my  Servant  whom  I  have  chosen ; 
My  Beloved  on  whom  my  soul  set  her  choice ; 
I  will  put  my  Spirit  upon  him.^ 

It  conveys  thus  the  same  conception  of  Jesus  as  the 
elect  Ser\'^ant,  endowed  with  all  the  powers  of  the  di- 
vine Spirit,  which  Paul  had  expressed  in  Col.  1 :  19. 
Paul  declares  that  it  was  the  "  good  pleasure "  (the 
euSoKta)  that  the  whole  "  fullness,"  or  as  one  of  the 
earliest  uncanonical  gospels  has  it,  "  the  whole  fountain 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,"  should  take  up  its  abode  in  the  Son 

1  The  words  viov  Oeov  are  wanting  in  some  manuscripts,  but  the 
aim  is  self-evident. 

2  Is.  42:  1-4.    The  rendering  is  that  of  Mt.  12:  18. 

137 


138  JESTJS    AND    PAUT- 

of  God's  love.  Mk.  1:  1-13  puts  this  in  the  form  of 
apocalypse,  or  revelation.^  But  the  prologue  of  Mark 
is  like  the  prologue  of  John  so  far  as  regards  its  rela- 
tion to  the  body  of  the  work.  The  fourth  evangelist 
introduces  Jesus  as  the  Logos  incarnate,  and  does  his 
best  to  tell  the  story  from  this  transcendental  point  of 
view.  But  the  title  never  reappears  in  the  body  of  the 
work,  and  in  the  nature  of  the  case  it  is  impossible  to 
carry  through  the  conception.  Mark  also  makec  the 
effort  to  tell  the  story  from  the  point  of  view  announced 
in  his  prologue.  But  in  tlie  nature  of  the  case  he  can- 
not maintain  the  Pauline  level.  He  can  only  relate  a 
series  of  anecdotes  from  the  Galilean  ministry  of  preacli- 
ing  and  healing  to  show  how  Jesus  was  endowed  with 
"  the  whole  fountain  of  the  Holy  Spirit."  Thereafter 
he  tells  how  he  was  glorified  through  his  suffering  and 
resurrection.  This  latter  section  of  the  narrative  is 
prefaced  by  another  vision  story  in  which  a  second  Voice 
from  Heaven  explains  again  the  meaning  of  what  is  to 
follow.  Jesus  is  again  manifested  as  the  "  Beloved 
Son,"  or  the  Elect  of  God,  and  his  suffering  on  the  cross 
is  revealed  as  being  in  reality  the  victory  over  death. 
Mortality  thus  puts  on  immortality,  and  this  earthly 
tabernacle  is  transfigured  into  the  eternal  "  house  which 
is  from  Heaven."  We  have  thus  a  second  introduction 
of  the  values  of  Pauline  teaching,  which  again  takes  the 
form  of  revealing  vision,  or  Apocalypse.  After  it  the 
evangelist  proceeds  with  the  anecdotes  connected  with 
Jesus'  fate  in  Jerusalem.  But  do  what  he  will  to  em- 
phasize the  miraculous  powers  of  Jesus  in  the  story, 
and  the  marvel  of  his  wisdom  and  prophetic  foresight, 
it  is  of  course  impossible  for  him  to  make  it  at  the  same 
time  the  story  of  a  real  man  under  real  historical  con- 
ditions, and  also  the  story  of  the  superhuman  being  who 

3  See  G.    Friedlander.     Jewish  Sources  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount,  p.  2. 


BACK  TO  GALILEE.   THE  WITNESS  OF  PETP:R    139 

steps  down  from  the  "  Heavenly  places  "  of  the  post- 
resurrection  Christology.  The  combination  is,  how- 
ever, attempted,  even  in  this  earliest  known  record  of 
the  sayings  and  doings  of  Jesus,  and  it  is  in  this  at- 
tempt that  the  influence  of  Paul,  however  indirectly,  is 
most  clearly  seen. 

It  is  fortunate  indeed  for  us  that  the  attempt  could 
not  be  carried  through.  "  John  "  has  gone  further  than 
Mark  in  this  direction  of  making  the  whole  story  of 
Jesus  one  long  transfiguration  scene,  and  we  all  know 
how  fatal  would  have  been  the  result  for  real  religious 
values  if  this  late  Gospel  had  succeeded  in  completely 
superseding  all  its  predecessors.  Mark  superseded  all 
earlier  Gospels.  Had  the  apotheosis  been  consistently 
carried  through  the  real  and  historical  Jesus  would  have 
been  completely  eclipsed  behind  the  glories  of  apoca- 
lyptic vision.  The  solid  ground  of  plain,  hard,  fact, 
in  the  work-a-day  world  we  have  to  live  in  whether  we 
approve  it  or  not,  would  have  disappeared.  There 
would  have  been  left  ns  as  the  basis  for  our  science  of 
religion  a  figure  scarcely  more  substantial  than  the 
mythical  heroes  of  the  mysteries.  Let  us  be  thankful 
that  the  whole  Gospel  was  not  written  in  the  mystic 
style  of  the  vision-stories  at  the  Baptism  and  Trans- 
figuration, that  there  was  so  much  of  unwelcome  fact, 
resistent  to  the  alembic  of  the  most  ardently  devout 
imagination,  so  much  fidelity  to  things  established  in 
the  mouths  of  many  witnesses,  that  it  was  impossible 
for  the  idealizers  to  have  their  way.  Well  is  it  that  the 
Church  did  not  follow  the  lead  of  that  ultra-Pauline 
element,  which  after  the  death  of  the  Apostles  sought  to 
limit  attention  and  interest  to  the  Man  from  Heaven, 
ignoring  the  Galilean  mechanic  whom  Paul  had  not 
known  in  the  flesh.  Sober,  moral,  common-sense  led  it 
to  fall  back  rather  on  the  Petrine  reminiscences  of  the 
sayings  and  doings  of  Jesus. 


140  JESrS    AND    PAUL 

The  sense  of  clianfi^e  in  passing  from  the  Pauline 
Epistles  to  what  I  have  called  the  "  Aramaic  enclave  " 
including  the  S\Tioptic  Gospels,  Acts  and  Eevelation, 
is  indeed  abrupt,  and  if  we  have  anv  sympathy  for  the 
Greek  conception  of  religion  as  participation  in  the  life 
of  the  immortals,  it  tends  to  bring  us  back  to  earth  with 
a  sense  of  shock.  T^To  wonder  Marcion  would  tolerate 
but  one  Gospel,  and  not  even  that  until  he  had  thor- 
oughly expurgated  what  he  regarded  as  the  Jewish 
interpolations  of  the  Galilean  Apostles.  ]S^evertheless 
if  any  ladder  is  to  bridge  for  us  the  chasm  between  earth 
and  Heaven  it  cannot  be  suspended  from  the  clouds. 
It  will  have  to  rest  upon  the  solid  rock  of  earthly  ex- 
perience. It  is  not  otherwise  even  with  that  Son  of 
Man  on  whom  the  Ephesian  evangelist  sees  the  angels 
of  God  ascending  and  descending  to  meet  our  human 
need.  One  made  in  all  points  like  ourselves  is  a  better 
leader  through  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death  than  a 
demi-god ;  and  a  Galilean  peasant  better  than  an  Indian 
prince. 

The  interval  between  Paul  and  the  Synoptic  writers 
is  considerable  in  time,  but  still  more  so  in  situation. 
The  one  thing  that  ancient  tradition  surely  knows  as 
regards  date  is  that  Markan  tradition  is  post-apostolic. 
The  Gospel  represents  Peter's  story,  but  without  such 
consecutive  arrangement  as  the  evangelist  would  have 
given  it  if  he  had  himself  been  conversant  with  the  facts, 
or  been  able  to  consult  the  eye-witnesses.  Mark  was 
not  himself  a  follower  of  the  Lord,  but  afterwards  of 
Peter;  and  even  what  he  remembered  from  the  teaching 
of  Peter  could  not  be  made  into  an  orderly  narrative  be- 
cause through  his  death  or  otherwise  Peter  (and  infer- 
entially  the  other  eye-witnesses)  could  not  be  consulted. 
This  is  absolutely  the  only  tradition  we  possess  con- 
cerning Gospel  origins  earlier  than  the  middle  (if  the 
second  century.     It  is  the  statement  of  "  the  Elder  " 


BACK    TO    GALILEE.       THE    WITNESS    OF    PETEK         141 

consulted  by  Papias,  and  dates  from  before  118  a.  d. 
Fortunately  it  is  also  not  only  reasonable  in  itself  and 
unlikely  to  be  an  invention,  but  of  very  great  impor- 
tance; because  scholarship  is  now  unanimous  in  regard- 
ing Mark  as  the  oldest  extant  Gospel,  and  the  source, 
so  far  as  narrative  is  concerned,  of  both  the  North- 
Syrian  Gospel  of  Luke,  and  the  South-Syrian  to  which 
the  name  of  Matthew  had  come  to  be  attached  before 
150  A.  D.  It  points,  then,  to  the  very  beginnings  of 
extant  gospel  story.  In  addition  there  are  reasons 
which  I  have  tried  to  state  elsewhere  *  for  accepting  the 
ancient  belief  that  the  compilation  of  this  "  Petrine  " 
material  into  our  so-called  Gospel  of  Mark  was  accom- 
plished in  the  great  Pauline  church  of  Rome,  and  for 
dating  it  in  the  earlier  years  of  Domitian,  not  far  from 
the  period  of  Hebrews.  These  reasons  still  seem  to  me 
adequate.  Here  no  more  will  be  needful  than  to  point 
out  briefly  the  significance  of  this  date  and  place  of 
origin. 

Only  a  score  of  years,  more  or  less,  since  the  death 
of  Paul,  and  James,  and  perhaps  John  the  son  of  Zebe- 
dee,  and  Peter.  But  that  means  that  the  chief  eye- 
witnesses, if  not  all  of  them,  were  gone.  For  James  the 
brother  of  John  had  already  been  martyred  in  41  or  42. 
In  the  eighties  men  must  have  begun  to  speak,  like  the 
author  of  Hebrews,  of  the  gospel  as  having  "  at  the  first 
been  spoken  by  the  Lord,  and  afterward  confirmed  unto 
us  by  them  that  heard."  It  means,  if  we  use  the  care- 
ful chronology  of  Clement,  that  men  were  already  look- 
ing back  to  Nero's  time  as  marking  the  end  of  "  the 
teaching  of  the  Apostles,"  and  considered  their  own 
generation  as  belonging  to  another  age.  In  fact  the 
extinction  of  the  Julian  djTiasty  with  the  suicide  of 
Nero,  tbe  chaos  of  the  world  in  the  renewal  of  the  civil 

4  Harvard  Texts  and  Studies  VII.     "  Is  Mark  a  Roman  Gos- 
pel?"    1919. 


142  JESUS    AXD    PAUL 

wars,  the  Jewish  war,  siege  of  Jerusalem  and  burning 
of  the  temple,  finally  the  restoration  of  order  under  the 
new  dynasty  of  the  Flavians,  might  well  seem  to  mark 
a  new  epoch,  especially  for  the  brotherhood  of  the  new 
people  of  God,  the  pre-ordained  heirs  of  the  age  to 
come,  as  the  Christians  regarded  themselves. 

I  need  not  repeat  what  has  already  been  said  as  to  the 
great  difference  in  language  in  this  new  type  of  church 
literature.  The  books  are  Greek,  obviously  composed 
for  a  Greek-speaking  Church  which  uses  the  Greek 
Bible,  as  do  the  evangelists.  But  the  material  of  Mark 
has  almost  certainly  been  translated  from  the  Aramaic. 
Aramaic  words  and  phrases  are  incorporated.  Where 
special  significance  attaches  to  the  utterance  the  evangel- 
ist reproduces  the  very  words  of  Jesus  in  the  original. 
Clearly  there  is  a  distinct  effort  to  reproduce  the  past 
in  the  most  authentic  form  obtainable.  The  book  is 
new,  but  the  material  is  old ;  and  to  judge  by  the  un- 
couthness  of  the  translation  in  many  cases,  there  is 
already  much  of  that  desire  which  could  hardly  fail  to 
appear,  to  get  back  to  the  authentic  words  and  deeds  of 
the  heavenly  Lord  as  they  had  taken  place  on  the  soil 
of  Palestine.  The  Gospel  closes  with  an  invitation 
from  the  angel  of  the  resurrection  to  come  and  view  the 
place  where  the  Lord  had  lain,  almost  a  hint  of  the 
coming  days  of  pilgrimage  to  this  shrine. 

But  the  difference  of  language  is  only  the  outward 
symptom  of  a  deeper  contrast  between  the  new  type  of 
Church  literature  and  that  which  had  preceded.  It  is 
a  new  functionary  of  the  Spirit  who  now  takes  up  the 
word.  We  have  been  listening  to  the  voice  of  the  Apos- 
tle. Wo  shall  soon  take  note  of  that  of  the  "  prophet " 
who  speaks  in  Christian  apocalypse.  Here  we  are  deal- 
ing with  a  third  type.  It  is  the  "  pastor  and  teacher  " 
whose  voice  is  heard  in  the  narrative  books.  And  the 
difference  in  tone  is  great.     The  Apostle  speaks  with 


BACK  TO  GALILEE.   THE  WITNESS  OF  PETER    143 

the  authority  of  his  own  experience.  He  testifies  what 
he  has  seen  and  heard  for  the  conversion  of  others. 
The  teacher  addresses  converts  already  made,  relating 
and  interpreting?  not  his  own  but  his  predecessors'  ex- 
perience. And  for  that  reason  he  attaches  no  name  to 
his  literary  work.  The  authority  is  not  his.  It  belongs 
to  those  whom  he  represents.  Only  later  tradition, 
compelled  to  distinguish  between  rival  forms  of  the 
common  record,  discriminates  one  "  aspect  of  the  gos- 
pel "  (as  Irenaeus  calls  it)  as  "according  to"  this  or 
that  authority,  from  another. 

2.  Evangelic  Tradition  at  Rome 

The  place  of  origin  of  our  oldest  Gospel  (as  well  as 
its  date)  is  also  highly  significant.  It  was  as  far  as 
possible  from  the  scene  of  the  events.  Written  records 
are  valued  where  oral  tradition  is  scanty.  The  mate- 
rial, of  course,  comes  from  Palestine ;  but  the  language 
alone  would  prove  that  the  work  was  compiled  in  a 
Greek-speaking  country,  and  the  character  of  it  con- 
firms the  ancient  tradition  that  it  emanates  from  Rome. 
For  in  its  whole  structure  it  employs  Petrine  material 
in  the  interest  of  a  Pauline  gospel,  thus  illustrating  the 
Petro-Pauline  character  of  the  metropolitan  church. 
For  we  are  informed  on  reliable  authority  that  the  Ro- 
man church  began  as  a  foundation  of  those  who  taught 
a  Jewish-Christian  gospel  of  continuance  under  the 
Mosaic  ordinances,  and  only  later  came  under  the  more 
liberal  influence  of  Paul.  This  liberalization  had  al- 
ready taken  place  at  the  time  when  Paul  wrote  his  great 
Epistle  to  the  Romans;  for,  Paul  finds  it  necessary  to 
urge  more  consideration  for  the  "  weak,"  that  is,  the 
scrupulous  Jewish-Christian  element.  These  for  them- 
selves followed  the  example  of  Peter,  though  conceding 
liberty  to  Gentiles.  When  Paul  wrote,  accordingly, 
the  Paulinists  must  have  been  at  Rome  predominant. 


144  JESUS    AMD    PAUL 

As  at  Corinth,  the  cluirch  needed  no  urging  in  the  di- 
rection of  the  freedom  wherewith  Christ  had  set  them 
free.  It  required  rather  to  be  reminded  that  Paul, 
whose  freedom  they  emulated,  had  refrained  from  as- 
serting it  when  it  might  cause  the  "  weak  "  brother  to 
stumble.  Now  the  kind  of  Paulinists  from  whom  we 
get  the  Gospel  of  Mark  are  in  fact  of  just  this  "  strong  " 
sort.  Emancipation  from  Jewish  legalism  is  their  no- 
tion of  his  doctrine.  Thej  have  been  informed  concern- 
ing Paul  that  he  "  teaches  the  Jews  which  are  among 
the  Gentiles  ever^nvhere  not  to  circumcise  their  chil- 
dren, nor  to  obey  the  customs."  As  we  see  from  Acts, 
common  report  told  this  about  Paul  long  before  men 
had  opportunity  to  learn  from  the  Epistles  his  doctrine 
of  Life  in  the  Spirit  producing  the  fruits  of  love  and 
peace.  The  former  teaching,  justification  by  faith 
alone,  without  works  of  law,  spreads  quickly  and  easily. 
It  is  a  proclamation  of  emancipation  which  one  man  can 
carry  in  a  few^  years  from  Jerusalem  round  about  unto 
Illyricum.  The  latter,  life  in  the  Spirit,  is  a  slow  proc- 
ess of  soul  culture  which  will  occupy  the  pastor  and 
teacher  for  generations  —  if  indeed  the  finer  Paulinism 
is  ever  learned. 

The  whole  conception  and  object  of  the  Gospel  of 
Mark  are  "  Pauline  "  in  the  former  broad  sense  for 
which  wo  might  perhaps  more  properly  use  the  term 
Paulinistic.  Its  message  is  salvation  *'  not  by  works 
of  the  law,  but  by  the  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus."  It 
represents  in  this  respect  a  marked  antithesis  to  Mat- 
thew, the  Gospel  of  the  new  Torah,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  practically  all  the  narrative  material  of  Matthew 
is  derived  from  Mark.  Per  contra  the  absence  of  the 
teaching  element  from  Mark  is  conspicuous.  'We  have 
anecdotes  of  both  sayings  and  doings,  but  the  selection 
is  made  to  show  what  Jesus  did.  There  is  scarcely  an 
attempt   to   show   what   he   taught,   save   by   example. 


BACK    TO    GALILEE.       THE    WITNESS    OF    PETER        145 

Take  as  an  example  of  the  difference  between  Matthew 
and  Mark  the  storv  of  the  Kich  Enquirer.  In  Matthew 
he  is  told  that  if  he  obeys  the  Ten  Commandments,  plus 
the  new  commandment  of  love,  he  shall  have  eternal  life. 
If  he  would  "  be  perfect  "  he  may  go  on  to  give  all  his 
goods  to  feed  the  poor  and  take  the  road  of  martyrdom. 
This  is  bald  neo-legalism.  In  the  earlier,  Markan  form 
the  story  is  strikingly  diiferent.  The  enquirer  is  told 
that  observance  of  the  commandments  is  not  enough. 
One  does  not  so  obtain  eternal  life ;  for  true  "  good- 
ness "  belongs  to  God  alone.  Whoso  would  follow  the 
Son  of  God  to  his  heavenly  seat  must  renounce  all  and 
take  the  path  of  martyrdom  with  Jesus  and  the  Twelve. 
Jesus  looks  indeed  with  att'cetion  on  one  who  from  child- 
hood has  obeyed  the  precepts,  but  only  self-dedication 
to  the  way  of  the  cross  gives  eternal  life.  Every  man, 
rich  or  poor,  renounces  all.  Mark  knows  no  other  gos- 
pel than  this:  "  He  who  would  save  his  life  shall  lose 
it."  Life  through  death,  after  the  example  of  the  Son 
of  God.  That  is  Mark's  gospel,  and  it  is  in  the  broad 
sense  Pauline,  however  lacking  in  the  subtler  traits  of 
Paulinism. 

One  of  the  most  generous  appreciators  of  Jesus  whom 
the  liberal  Synagogiie  has  ever  produced  declares  the 
teaching  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  to  be  "  inspired  by  an 
ideal  and  heroic  spirit  "  lacking  to  the  sayings  of  the 
Rabbis,  however  admirable.^  This  "  ideal  and  heroic 
spirit "  is  the  special  contribution  of  the  Gospel  of 
Mark.  It  is  this  evangelist  who  sums  up  the  example 
of  Jesus  in  the  parallel  to  Paul's  description  of  the 
"  mind  of  Christ  " :  "  The  vSon  of  Man  came  not  to  be 
ministered  unto,  but  to  minister,  and  to  give  his  life  a 
ransom  instead  of  many."  It  is  this  Gospel  which  re- 
ports as  Jesus'  summary  of  all  moral  and  religious  obli- 
gation :  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all 
5  C.  G.  Montefiore.     Synoptic  Gospels,  p.  cv. 


146  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

thy  mind  and  strength,  and  thy  neig-hbor  as  thyself." 
Subtract  Mark  from  the  Synoptic  tradition  and  you  will 
be  surprised  to  tind  how  little  of  the  ''  heroic  spirit " 
remains. 

It  might,  perhaps,  seem  un-Pauline  that  Mark  has  so 
little  to  say  about  the  resurrection.  The  story  of  the 
empty  tomb,  unfinished  in  the  authentic  text,  is  com- 
pletely different  from  the  apostolic  resurrection  gospel 
reported  by  Paul.  It  would  seem  to  have  been  attached 
after  the  close  of  an  earlier  form  of  the  Gospel  which 
ended  with  the  centurion's  testimony :  "  Surely  this 
was  a  Son  of  God."  The  later  Gospels  give  little  more, 
and  all  follow  the  lead  of  Mark  rather  than  Paul.  But 
there  is  a  special  reason  for  the  omission.  It  was  not 
the  province  of  the  mere  teacher  to  bear  witness  to  the 
resurrection.  That  Avas  the  work  of  the  Apostle.  The 
resurrection  could  be  presupposed  as  something  with, 
which  every  convert  was  familiar.  In  relating  the  say- 
ings and  doings  of  the  Lord  the  catechist  might  take  it 
for  granted.  In  relating  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus  he 
could  only  point  forward  prophetically  to  his  exaltation 
and  the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit.  His  record,  if  lim- 
ited to  what  Jesus  began  to  do  and  to  teach,  might  for 
this  reason  appropriately  close  with  the  centurion's 
word. 

As  an  example  of  this  "  forward  pointing "  let  us 
take  the  story  of  Jesus'  baptism  by  John  which  falls 
in  a  sense  outside  the  strict  province  of  the  evangelist. 
The  Christian  teacher  will  not  pass  it  by.  But  he  may 
well  give  his  narrative  such  a  fonn  as  will  most  clearly 
indicate  to  the  convert  the  ideal  of  Christian  baptism. 
Only  Matthew  tells  how  the  latter  was  instituted.  But 
Mark  attains  the.  same  practical  object  by  so  describing 
the  baptism  of  Jesus  as  to  bring  out  its  relation  to 
John's  baptism  of  repentance.  John  himself  in  tlie 
story   is  made  to  predict  the  coming  baptism  of  the 


BACK    TO    GALILEE.       THE    WITNESS    OF    PETEE        147 

Spirit,  while  Jesus'  experience  is  so  described  as  to 
show  that  its  supreme  significance  lies  in  the  descent 
and  indwelling  of  the  Spirit  of  Adoption  which  fills 
all  Christians  with  the  powers  of  the  new  Messianic  age. 
One  can  hardly  imagine  the  Christian  catechist  telling 
the  story  of  the  baptism  of  Jesus  without  this  special 
practical  interest.  It  might  be  beyond  his  province  to 
relate  the  Pentecostal  baptism  of  the  Spirit;  but  he 
would  be  very  apt  to  introduce  an  allusion  to  this  in  the 
form  of  the  promise:  "He  shall  baptize  you  with  the 
Holy  Ghost,"  which  in  Mk.  1 :  8  is  inserted  as  a  proph- 
ecy of  John  the  Baptist,  but  in  the  Second  Source  is 
more  credibly  attributed  to  Jesus. 

The  catechist  would  find  means  also,  no  doubt,  in 
his  narrative  of  Jesus'  self-dedication  to  the  cross,  to 
make  it  clear  that  the  death  which  he  was  ready  to 
undergo,  and  which  he  called  upon  his  followers  to  face 
with  Him,  was  not  to  be  defeat  but  victory.  We  expect 
the  evangelist  to  accompany  his  story  of  the  revelation 
of  the  mystery  of  the  cross,  with  a  prophetic  foreshadow- 
ing of  the  resurrection.  This  he  really  does  by  a 
method  which  we  shall  examine  presently.  But  we 
take  him  beyond  his  province  if  we  expect  him  to  con- 
tinue his  story  in  a  way  to  include  the  experience  of  the 
apostolic  witnesses.  The  most  that  can  be  expected  of 
a  teacher,  or  catechist,  whose  province  is  to  tell  the  story 
of  Jesus'  earthly  ministry,  is  that  he  will  tell  it  as  one 
who  knows  what  came  after,  and  who  therefore  inter- 
prets its  significance  in  the  light  of  the  resurrection 
glory.  Certainly  none  of  our  evangelists  falls  short  in 
this  respect.  Indeed  when  we  look  at  the  Roman  Gos- 
pel which  became  so  completely  the  standard  for  this 
whole  class  of  literature  that  no  other  considerable  rec- 
ord of  Jesus'  activity  survives, —  when  we  see  how  the 
material  has  been  selected,  and  what  motive  controls 
the  elaboration,  it  will  be  perfectly  apparent  that  we 


148  JESUS    AND    PAUL. 

have  in  Mark  not  a  biography,  not  a  history,  but  a 
selection  of  anecdotes;  and  even  this  selection  is  made 
for  purposes  not  of  history  but  of  edification.  There 
is  even  something  like  the  converse  of  that  process  of 
double  translation  which  I  have  attributed  to  Paul.  In- 
stead of  a  translation  of  the  story  into  Hellenistic  forms 
of  thought  and  language,  we  now  have  the  Pauline  con- 
ceptions translated  into  Jewish  forms  of  thought  and 
language  and  read  back  into  the  story.  The  vision  and 
Voice  from  Heaven  which  interpret  the  significance  of 
Jesus'  baptism,  and  the  corresponding  vision  and  Voice 
from  Heaven  which  interpret  the  significance  of  his 
martyr  death,  are  examples  of  this  process  of  carrying 
back  the  later-understood  values  into  the  primary  story. 
And  the  method  is  one  which  every  Jewish  scholar  will 
recognize  as  embodying  the  classical  forms  of  religious 
teaching  as  practiced  in  the  Synagogue,  under  the  name 
of  midrash,  i.  e.,  "  exposition,"  a  method  adapted  to 
men  whose  abstract  reasoning  is  in  tlie  mythopoeic  stage. 
Haggada,  or  edifying  exposition,  gets  its  very  name 
from  nagid,  "  to  tell  a  story."  We  shall  see  presently 
that  the  two  examples  already  cited  stand  by  no  means 
alone  in  the  process  by  which  the  experience  of  Peter 
is  related  in  such  a  way  as  to  give  it  religious  values 
which  were  really  the  discovery  of  Paul. 

The  Gospel  of  Mark,  early  as  it  is,  really  represents 
an  advanced  stage  in  this  process  of  adaptation  for 
pragmatic  purposes,  wpo?  ras  XP""^^,  a^  Papias  expresses 
it.  And  the  values  which  its  collection  of  preachers' 
anecdotes  is  framed  to  exhibit  are  in  marked  degree  the 
values  of  the  Pauline  gospel ;  not  indeed  in  Pauline  lan- 
guage, for,  as  we  have  seen,  the  material  is  of  Pales- 
tinian, Aramaic  derivation.  Not  in  the  finer,  deeper, 
more  mystical  elements  of  Paul's  individnal  religious 
experience,  but  in  the  elements  which  his  converts  most 
readily  absorbed,  when  they  declared,  "  I  am  of  Paul," 


BACK    TO    GALILEE.       THE    WITNESS    OF    PETEB         149 

'"I  am  saved  by  my  faith,"  "We  are  not  under  law, 
but  under  grace,"  "  We  die  with  Clirist,  that  we  may 
be  raised  tog-ether  with  him,"  "  As  many  as  are  led  by 
the  Spirit  are  sons  of  God,"  ""  He  that  hath  faith 
moveth  mountains." 

For  this  more  commonplace,  work-a-day  type  of 
Paulinism,  I  have  proposed  to  use  the  term  "  Paulinis- 
tic  "  rather  than  "  Pauline,"  I  need  not  dwell  upon 
the  Paulinistic  sense  in  which  the  Gospel  of  Mark  makes 
use  of  Pctrine  tradition  of  the  story  of  Jesus,  because 
in  other  writings  I  have  already  tried  to  make  this 
clear.  As  we  know,  this  Gospel  passes  over  entirely  all 
that  precedes  the  baptism  of  Jesus,  making  his  divine 
sonship  begin  with  his  baptism  and  endowment  with  the 
powers  of  the  Spirit  of  Adoption,  just  as  all  Christians 
undergo  the  same  experience  in  degree  and  part.  It 
does  not  even  mention  his  Davidic  descent,  though  Paul 
himself  refers  to  it.  Instead  it  introduces  later  (12: 
35-37)  a  special  section  in  which  Jesus  argues  from 
the  110th  Psalm  that  Davidic  descent  is  needless,  be- 
cause the  Messiah  is  really  manifested  as  such  with 
power  by  an  exaltation  to  the  heavenly  throne.  The 
dependent  Gospels  of  Luke  and  Matthew  supply  in  mu- 
tually inconsistent  ways  this  initial  defect  of  the  Roman 
Gospel,  by  what  we  call  the  Infancy  chapters,  combin- 
ing the  claim  of  Davidic  descent  with  a  later  legend  of 
supernatural  birth. 

The  Gospel  of  Mark  has  been  understood  from  the 
earliest  times  (and  doubtless  to  some  extent  justly  un- 
derstood) to  be  composed  of  anecdotes  derived  from  the 
preaching  of  Peter.  We  should  naturally  expect  it  to 
present  Peter  in  a  favorable  light.  On  the  contrary  it 
never  mentions  Peter  individually  except  to  make  him 
the  target  for  severe  rebuke,  and  an  example  of  the 
callousness  and  "hardness  of  heart"  (tto'jpojcti?)  which 
are  shared  even  by  the  Twelve  with  Israel  as  a  whole. 


150  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

lu  the  Revelation  of  the  Mystery  of  the  Cross  which 
opens  the  second  part  of  the  Gospel  Peter  actually  be- 
comes the  mouthpiece  of  Satan  by  his  protest  against 
the  fundamental  doctrine  of  Pauliuism.  Even  at  the 
end  of  the  narrative  Peter  still  remains  under  the  cloud 
of  desertion  in  the  face  of  the  enemy.  He  stands  the 
conspicuous  example  of  vain-glorious  boasting,  "  though 
all  should  forsake  thee,  yet  will  not  I,"  followed  by  col- 
lapse before  the  challenge  of  a  maid-servant.  So  is  it 
with  the  other  "  pillar-apostles."  James  and  John  are 
introduced  in  10 :  39  as  the  martyr  "  sons  of  Zebedee  " ; 
but  they  play  no  individual  part  in  the  Gospel  save  for 
this  rebuke  of  their  selfish  ambition  for  superior  places 
in  the  Kingdom.  John  by  himself  alone  comes  to  the 
front  but  once.  It  is  to  meet  rebuke  for  narrow  in- 
tolerance. The  kindred  of  the  Lord,  who  played  so 
conspicuous  a  part  in  the  Jerusalem  caliphate,  have  two 
appearances  in  the  Gospel  of  Mark.  The  first  is  their 
attempt  to  arrest  Jesus  in  his  work,  when  they  are  re- 
nounced in  favor  of  Jesus'  spiritual  kin  "  that  do  the 
will  of  God."  The  second  is  when  at  Nazareth  they 
appear  among  those  who  refuse  to  believe  a  prophet  in 
his  own  home.  Naturally  both  Luke  and  Matthew  can- 
cel both  these  reflections  on  the  revered  desposyni. 

We  cannot  doubt  that  the  Gospel  of  Mark  comes  from 
a  really  early  period,  when  material  was  relatively 
abundant.  Since  it  is  not  possible  to  imagine  that  there 
was  nothing  at  the  compiler's  disposal  in  the  way  of 
anecdotes  about  Peter,  James  and  John,  and  the  kin- 
dred of  the  Lord,  which  did  not  place  them  in  the  atti- 
tude of  examples  to  be  avoided,  we  are  almost  forced 
to  recognize  a  certain  hostility  to  the  pretensions  of  the 
Jerusalem  caliphate. 

In  addition  to  this  we  find  this  Gospel  introducing 
but  a  single  full  example  of  Jesus'  preaching  in  Galilee, 
and  this  an  adaptation  of  a  group  of  parables  to  the 


BACK    TO    GALILEE.       THE    WITNESS    OF    PETEK        151 

theme  of  the  hiding  of  the  mystery  of  the  kingdom  from 
Israel  as  a  whole  as  unworthy.  According  to  Mark 
the  parabolic  method  of  teaching  was  adopted  by  Jesus 
in  order  to  conceal  his  message  from  all  but  a  select 
few  of  his  spiritual  kin,  while  the  rest  of  the  Jews  are 
"  hardened."  It  is  impossible  here  to  overlook  the  con- 
nection with  the  Pauline  doctrine  expoUtided  in  the 
great  apologetic  on  the  "  hardening  of  Israel  "  in  Rom. 
8-11.  Mark  adopts  the  idea  of  the  "hardening" 
(TTwpwCTts),  the  "spirit  of  stupor,  eyes  that  they  should 
not  see,  and  ears  that  they  should  not  hear,"  but  he  ap- 
plies it  specifically  to  the  teaching-  in  parables  (Rom. 
11 :  8 ;  cf.  Is.  6 :  9  quoted  in  Mk.  4  :  12). 

There  is  a  very  general  disposition  among  critics  to 
admit  some  Paulinistic  influence  in  this  section  of 
Mark.  What  men  fail  to  see,  however,  is  that  the  whole 
Gospel  is  composed  from  a  Paulinistic  point  of  view. 
The  only  great  discourses  of  Jesus  are  denunciatory  of 
the  Jewish  nation.  The  Jewish  law  and  Jewish  ob- 
servances never  come  into  view  but  to  be  rejected  by 
Jesus  as  a  "  vain  worship,"  "  precepts  and  ordinances 
of  men,"  contrary  to  what  God  enjoined  in  the  very  cre- 
ation. Jesus  overrides  the  Sabbaths,  disregards  the 
fasts  and  ablutions,  and  declares  all  meats  clean,  abol- 
ishing the  Mosaic  distinctions.  The  scribes  whom  he 
denounces  call  him  an  agent  of  Beelzebub.  The  Phari- 
sees, in  company  with  "  all  the  Jews,"  are  described  by 
the  evangelist  as  addicted  to  a  religion  of  outward  form, 
Jesus  speaks  of  them  as  "  hypocrites  " ;  thej^  conspire 
with  the  Herodians  to  put  him  to  death.  In  Luke  and 
Matthew  much  of  this  is  of  course  retained.  But  in 
the  later  Gospels  there  is  discrimination.  Jesus  op- 
poses not  Judaism  as  such,  but  the  particular  classes 
who  misrepresent  it,  not  the  Law  of  Moses,  but  the  false 
interpretation  of  it.  Mark,  like  the  fourth  evangelist, 
speaks  of  "the  Jews,"  and  Judaism  in  general,  as  re- 


152  JESTTS    A^^B    PAUL 

noimced  by  Jesus,  and  contrasts  what  Moses  commanded 
for  the  hardness  of  Israel's  heart  with  "  the  command- 
ment of  God." 

All  this  is  recalled  only  to  show  that  while  we  un- 
doubtedly have  in  Mark  the  oldest  form  of  that  Aramaic, 
Palestinian,  tradition  which  all  Christian  antiquity 
associates  with  the  preaching  of  Peter,  and  which  we 
call  "  Petrine  "  in  this  sense,  nevertheless  the  selection 
of  material,  and  the  mode  of  presentation,  are  not  only 
anti-Jewish,  but  anti-Jewish-Christian.  They  are  not 
to  any  great  extent  Pauline  in  langiiage  or  in  the  finer 
shades  of  the  Apostle's  thought,  but  they  are  "  Paulinis- 
tic  "  in  their  whole  structure  and  adaptation. 

Our  interpretation  of  Synoptic  literature  in  general 
cannot  afford  to  ignore  this  Paulinistic  character  of 
Mark;  because  admittedly  Mark  is  the  foundation  of 
the  whole  SjTioptic  narrative,  and  therefore  gives  us 
practically  all  we  know  about  the  historical  Jesus. 
This  fundamental  source,  as  we  now  see  it,  groups  its 
material  around  the  same  two  foci  which  we  have  seen 
are  central  to  the  thought  of  Paul. 

Mark's  story  of  the  Galilean  ministry  is  an  account 
of  Jesus'  baptism  and  exercise  of  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit. 
Opposition  by  the  scribes  leads  to  his  rejection  of  Jew- 
ish legalism,  but  the  Twelve  receive  from  him  the  "  mys- 
tery of  the  kingdom  "  and  the  wonder-working  power  of 
faith,  and  are  by  degrees  emancipated  from  their  Jew- 
ish "  hardness  of  heart."  Mark  even  relates  at  the  close 
of  the  Galilean  ministry  a  mission  of  Jesus  to  the  Gen- 
tiles, which  must,  of  course,  be  regarded  as  unhistori- 
cal ;  but  not  so  much  because  both  later  Synoptists  can- 
cel it,  as  because  it  anticipates  both  the  work  of  Paul 
and  the  opposition  Paul  encountered  from  the  legalists. 
At  all  events  it  is  subordinate  to  the  principal  theme. 

The  second  focus  is  the  Supper.  The  story  of  the 
Jerusalem  ministry  starts  with   the  revelation  of  the 


BACK    TO    GALILEE.       THE    WITNESS    OF    PETEE        153 

mystery  of  the  cross  aud  resurrection  as  the  real  goal 
of  Messiah's  work,  leading  up  to  the  "  three  days  "  as 
the  climax.  It  relates  such  anecdotes,  and  only  such, 
as  have  a  direct  hearing  on  this  sacrifice  as  the  ground 
of  salvation.  But  Peter,  James  and  John  lag  here  even 
more  than  in  the  first  half  behind  the  mind  of  Christ. 

The  reader  is  left  at  last  looking  forward  to  the  pre- 
dicted resurrection,  hut  without  actual  narration  of  it, 
a  defect  which  the  later  evangelists  seek  to  remedy  in 
ways  which  agree  neither  with  one  another  nor  with 
Paul.  But  this  phenomenon  has  an  explanation  of  its 
own. 

Such  a  selection  of  narratives  from  the  story  of  Jesus 
out  of  the  rich  abundance  which  must  have  been  in  early 
circulation,  and  such  an  application,  could  hardly  have 
been  made  in  circles  where  the  highest  reverence  was 
paid  to  Peter  and  the  Twelve.  It  bespeaks  a  church 
already  gTounded  in  the  leading  principles  of  the  gospel 
of  Paul,  but  impelled  by  the  same  necessity  which  led 
Paul  to  emphasize  the  moral  nature  of  the  Christian's 
mystic  union  with  his  Savior-god  to  fall  back  upon  the 
life  and  teaching  of  Jesus  as  its  ideal  and  standard. 
The  church  whose  type  of  teaching  is  here  reflected  has 
small  appreciation  of  the  great  ethical  and  religious 
discourses  of  Jesus.  It  thinks  of  him  less  as  rabbi  than 
as  martyr,  and  it  heartily  believes  that  eternal  life  comes 
only  by  self-dedication  to  death  with  this  "  Christ." 
It  holds  before  many  eyes,  as  Paul  did,  Christ  crucified, 
a  Jesus  who  teaches  less  by  word  than  by  example. 
For  the  Church  already  feels  the  need  of  being  taught 
through  surviving  anecdotes  from  Jesus'  life,  in  par- 
ticular the  lessons  implied  in  its  own  ordinances  of  bap- 
tism and  the  Supper. 

We  shall  see  that  this  increasing  emphasis  on  the 
moral  aspect  of  the  story  tends  to  greater  and  greater 
use  in  later  Gospels  of  a  Second  or  Teaching  Source,  of 


154  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

whose  origin  we  have  no  information  whatsoever;  for 
the  alleged  tradition  describing  its  contents  as  "  logia," 
and  connecting  with  it  the  name  of  "  Matthew  "  refers 
to  nothing  else  than  our  own  canonical  Matthew.  As 
referred  to  the  Second  Source  it  dates  back,  as  Dr.  Sal- 
mon caustically  remarked,  no  further  than  the  nine- 
teenth century.  This  Second  Source  makes  no  special 
reference  to  Peter.  Indeed  we  should  rather  infer  from 
its  character,  and  from  the  way  in  which  it  is  subordi- 
nated to  Mark  in  the  treatment  accorded  it  by  Luke  and 
Matthew,  that  it  comes  from  some  author  outside  the 
number  of  the  Twelve.  Wliat  was  the  nature  of  this 
Second,  or  Teaching  Source  ?  What  was  its  view-point 
in  setting  forth  the  character  of  Jesus;  and  how  far  can 
we  rely  upon  its  witness  as  a  faithful  record  of  the  Mas- 
ter's utterance  ?  These  are  questions  for  our  considera- 
tion hereafter.  For  the  present  we  limit  ourselves  to 
the  narratives  associated  with  the  name  of  Peter,  among 
which,  if  anywhere,  we  must  find  the  most  authentic 
materials  for  supplementing  the  meager  outline  deriv- 
able from  the  allusions  of  Paul.  We  shall  see  that  here, 
too,  the  doctrine  is  Paul's,  though  given  in  the  name 
and  under  the  autliority  of  Peter. 

3.  Pauline  Teaching  in  the  Name  of  Peter 

I  have  already  said  that  the  employment  of  the  name 
and  traditions  of  Peter  in  the  post-Pauline  period  as  a 
vehicle  for  ideas  which  in  their  origin  are  distinctively 
Paul's  is  a  phenomenon  by  no  means  confined  to  the 
Gospel  of  Mark.  On  the  contrary,  until  the  name  of 
"  John  "  is  advanced  at  a  period  certainly  subsequent  to 
the  appearance  of  the  Apocalypse  under  this  pseudo- 
nym, and  probably  as  a  consequence  of  it.  the  name  of 
"  Peter  "  serves  as  the  guarantee  for  all  apostolic  tra- 
dition. In  the  Pauline  churches  of  Italy  and  Asia 
Minor  "  apostolic  "  doctrine  would  of  course  in  all  es- 


BACK  TO  GALILEE.   THE  WITNESS  OF  PETER    155 

sential  features  be  distinctively  Pauline,  however  it 
mio-ht  seek  sanction  under  the  growing  authority  of 
"  Peter." 

"We  could  not  have  a  better  example  of  the  extension 
of  the  Petrine  protectorate  after  the  death  of  Paul  than 
the  great  word  of  encouragement  sent  apparently  from 
Rome  but  in  the  name  of  Peter  to  the  suffering 
Churches  of  the  Anatolian  peninsula  in  the  midst  of 
the  fiery  persecution  of  Domitian.  The  Epistle  known 
to  us  as  First  Peter  encourages  these  Anatolian  Chris- 
tians to  stand  fast,  and  assures  them  that  the  gospel 
they  had  received  from  Paul  is  "  the  true  grace  of 
God."  The  date  and  place  of  origin  of  First  Peter 
cannot  be  far  (if  the  prevailing  judgment  of  critics  be 
correct)  from  our  Gospel  of  Mark.  As  Harnack  points 
out,  if  we  were  to  cut  off  the  first  single  word  of  the 
writing,  just  the  name  "  Peter,"  no  one  would  ever 
dream  of  attributing  it  to  this  Apostle.  It  purports 
to  be  from  Peter,  and  always  did ;  for  the  attempt  of 
Harnack  to  make  it  appear  that  the  name  "  Peter  "  is  a 
later  interpolation  breaks  down  entirely  before  the  over- 
whelming evidence  both  external  and  internal.  The 
name  "  Peter  "  is  original,  but  assumed.  The  writer 
is  a  Paulinist  if  ever  there  was  one.  So  much  so  that 
one  eminent  German  critic  proposes  to  regard  the  writ- 
ing as  by  the  same  author  as  Ephesians,  the  material  of 
which  is  constantly  employed.  I  am  by  no  means  ready 
to  admit  that  Ephesians  is  deutero-Pauline;  but  First 
Peter  is  so  unmistakably  so  that  even  Zahn  proposes 
to  regard  it  as  owing  at  least  its  phraseology  to  Silvanus. 
Mark,  as  we  remember,  appears  in  this  writing  as 
Peter's  spiritual  "  son." 

An  equally  cogent  example  of  the  incorporation  of 
Paulinism  under  patronage  of  Peter  is  the  first  half  of 
the  narrative  of  Acts,  covering  that  portion  of  the  work 
which  appears  to  have  been  translated  from  the  Ara- 


156  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

maic,  and  in  which  the  hero  and  central  authority  is 
Peler.  Xotoriously  we  have  in  this  narrative  a  kind  of 
duplication  of  everything  that  had  been  related  of  Paul 
in  the  earlier  Greek  narrative  which  has  been  incor- 
porated in  the  second  half  of  the  book.  This  second 
half  of  Acts  is  the  more  authentic ;  for  it  is  based  upon 
a  contemporary  document,  and  not  only  has  ample  cor- 
roboration in  its  main  features  in  the  Pauline  epistles, 
but  in  its  intrinsic  characteristics  is  much  less  tinc- 
tured with  legendary  features.  The  dependence  and 
adjustment  necessary  to  produce  the  parallelism  must, 
then,  be  on  the  side  of  First  Acts,  the  document  of 
which  Peter  is  the  hero,  and  which  extends  to  15 :  33, 
with  some  additions  from  other  sources.  It  is  certainly 
not  historical  when  here  the  entire  work  of  Paul  is  an- 
ticipated by  Peter.  We  certainly  cannot  agree  when 
Acts  15:  7  makes  Peter  declare  that  God  chose  him  to 
be  the  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles.  But  under  what  stand- 
ard were  the  Pauline  Churches  to  come  after  Paul's 
death ;  if  not  that  of  the  older  Apostles  ?  Through  no 
other  authority  than  Peter  could  they  relate  themselves 
to  the  historic  Christ.  In  Acts  the  process  is  particu- 
larly conspicuous  in  the  story  of  the  conversion  of  Cor- 
nelius at  Caesarea  (a  parallel  to  Paul's  conversion  of 
the  proconsul  at  Paphos)  and  Peter's  subsequent  de- 
fense of  his  conduct  in  disregarding  the  Mosaic  distinc- 
tions, e\'en  to  the  point  of  "  eating  with  the  Gentiles." 
A  conclave  at  Jerusalem  after  reviewing  his  conduct 
and  the  divine  sanction  it  had  received,  pronounces 
upon  the  whole  transaction  the  verdict :  "  Then  to  the 
Gentiles  also  hath  God  granted  repentance  unto  life." 
This  of  course  anticipates  all  Paul's  conflict  on  their 
behalf.  When  we  read  in  Galatians  of  the  obstacles 
put  in  Paul's  path,  and  the  opjiosition  from  Peler  liini- 
self  in  refusing  to  "  eat  witli  the  Gentiles  " —  when  we 
remember  the  long  struggle  through  which   Paul   ob- 


BACK    TO    GALILEE.       THE    WITNESS    OF    PKTEK         157 

tained  from  these  same  Jerusalem  antliorities  the  con- 
cession of  only  a  part  of  what  is  here  declared  to 
have  been  publicly  and  officially  conceded  to  Peter  he- 
fore  Paul's  first  missionary  journey,  it  is  apparent  that 
the  narrator  is  getting  ahead  of  the  facts.  In  his  story 
the  whole  battle  of  Gentile  freedom  from  the  law,  in- 
cluding the  abolition  of  all  distinctions  of  meats  as 
merely  man-made  ("  what  God  hath  cleansed  make  not 
thou  'common'"),  and  the  sweeping  recognition  that 
"  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons,  but  in  every  nation 
he  that  feareth  him  and  worketh  righteousness  is  ac- 
ceptable to  Him  "  is  carried  to  a  victorious  conclusion 
by  Peter  officially  and  publicly  in  Jerusalem,  before 
Paul  appears  upon  the  scene,  or  has  so  much  as  ap- 
proached a  single  Gentile.  How  then  could  it  have 
had  to  be  fought  all  over  again  by  Paul  with  far  less 
decisive  results,  and  failure  by  his  own  acknowledg- 
ment to  win  over  Peter  himself  ?  There  is  here,  then, 
most  undeniably,  a  Paulinization  of  Peter.  The  writer 
of  this  Aramaic  source,  incorporated  by  the  compiler  of 
Acts,  is  doing  in  his  own  way  what  the  writer  of  First 
Peter  does.  He  is  attributing  to  Peter,  as  head  of  the 
apostolic  college  and  chief  source  of  authority  for  the 
age  in  which  he  writes,  ideas  which  for  that  age,  and 
for  the  compiler,  are  indeed  axiomatic ;  but  which  in 
point  of  fact  were  with  difficulty  driven  home  by  Paul 
upon  the  older  Apostles,  and  to  some  extent  were  really 
resisted  to  the  end  by  the  actual  historical  Peter  of 
whom  Paul  tells. 

Acts  gives  more  than  a  mere  precedent  for  the  process 
which  I  have  spoken  of  as  all'ecting  the  Gospel  of  Mark. 
Both  writers  use  the  same  Paulinized  tradition  of  Peter. 
In  the  case  of  Mark  also,  as  well  as  Acts,  the  process  is 
antecedent  to  the  evangelist's  own  work;  for  it  is  just 
as  certain  that  Mark  himself  has  not  composed,  but 
simply  incorporated,  the  Transfiguration  story  (to  take 


158  JESUS    AND    PAUL. 

the  salient  example)  as  it  is  that  "  Luke  "  has  not  com- 
posed, but  incorporated,  the  story  of  Peter's  revelation 
of  the  abolition  of  the  Mosaic  distinctions  of  meats  in 
the  vision  of  Joppa.  The  process  is  older  in  both  cases 
than  tlie  compilation  of  the  present  Greek  work.  In 
fact  it  would  probably  be  possible  to  establish  on  lin- 
guistic grounds  that  in  both  cases  the  source  was  Ara- 
maic. But  in  both  cases  it  is  certainly  later  than  the 
time  of  Paul.  For  during  the  life-time  of  the  two 
Apostles  it  would  be  impossible  to  attribute  to  Peter  a 
divine  revelation  teaching  him  that  his  reluctance  to 
partake  of  anything  "  common "  or  unclean  was  a 
man-made  obstacle  to  the  divine  purpose,  that  there  is 
no  distinction  with  God  between  Jews  and  Gentiles, 
and  that  he  ought  to  have  no  hesitation  about  entering 
in  to  men  uncircumcised  and  eating  with  them.  Only 
after  the  death  of  the  great  Apostles  could  the  repre- 
sentation become  current.  For  we  know  that  Paul  was 
driven  to  resist  Peter  publicly  to  his  face  because  Peter 
and  all  the  Jews  at  Antioch,  including  "  even  Barna- 
bas," stood  for  the  very  things  here  rejected  by  divine 
authority. 

In  like  manner  it  could  only  be  after  the  death  of 
both  Paul  and  Peter  that  men  would  come  to  represent 
"  Peter  and  those  that  were  with  him  "  in  "  the  holy 
mount  "  receiving  their  apostleship  of  the  new  covenant 
in  terms  which  under  the  forms  of  Jewish  midrash  are 
an  equivalent  for  Paul's  great  exposition  of  the  reve- 
lation given  to  "  ministers  of  the  new  covenant  "  in 
II  Cor.  3:  1-0:10. 

It  need  not  necessarily  be  the  very  same  document 
that  has  afforded  to  the  author  of  Acts  his  story  of  the 
vision  and  Voice  from  Heaven  by  vs^hich  Peter  is  di- 
vinely taught  the  lesson  so  hardly  learned  from  Paul 
at  Antioch,  and  to  the  author  of  Mark  his  story  of  the 
vision   and  Voice  from  Heaven  by  which   the   pillar 


BACK    TO    GALILEE.       THE    WITNESS    OF    PETER        159 

Apostles  ^  are  taught  the  Pauline  gospel  of  the  mystery 
of  the  cross.  We  know  of  many  very  early  writings 
which  purported  to  give  the  "  Preaching  "  or  "  Teach- 
ing," or  "  Revelation  of  Peter."  It  is  possible  that  two 
different  documents  might  contain  representations  of 
divine  revelation  to  Peter  on  the  salient  points  of 
Pauline  doctrine  which  are  as  closely  akin  as  the  Trans- 
figuration story  of  the  Gospels  and  the  vision  at  Joppa 
in  Acts.  The  point  at  issue  is  not  a  question  of  par- 
ticular documents  and  sources,  but  of  the  process  by 
which  after  the  death  of  Peter  and  Paul  the  Aramaic- 
speaking  branch  of  the  Church  endeavored  to  infuse 
Petrine  tradition  with  the  religious  values  of  Paul's 
teaching;  just  as  conversely  Paul's  churches  at  Rome 
and  throughout  the  Greek-speaking  world  inevitably 
turned  to  the  older  Apostles  as  authorities  for  the  au- 
thentic faith.  So  Polycarp  and  Papias  urge  return  to 
the  "  tradition  handed  down  to  us  from  the  very  first  " ; 
as  the  only  possible  bulwark  against  the  heretics  who 
are  "  perverting  the  precepts  of  the  Lord  to  their  own 
lusts."  Polycarp  and  Papias  are  not  Jewish-Chris- 
tians. They  simply  continue  the  inevitable  reaction 
already  conspicuous  in  the  Pastoral  Epistles,  a  reaction 
which  could  not  do  otherwise  than  appeal  to  the  name 
of  Peter  in  support  of  "  the  true  grace  of  God  "  which 
it  had  actually  learned  from  Paul.  That  the  process 
has  affected  our  Gospel  of  Mark,  and  by  this  means  our 
entire  record  of  the  life  of  Jesus  seems  to  me  an  unde- 
niable fact,  and  one  of  obvious  importance. 

Many,  I  know,  will  resist  to  the  utmost  the  suggestion 
that  the  authentic  story  of  Peter  can  have  suffered  any 
infiltration  of  Pauline  ideas  in  the  form  of  midrash,  or 
homiletic  exposition.     They  consider  that  the  admis- 

6  "  James  "  in  the  trio  of  witnesses  of  the  transfiguration  is  of 
course  a  different  James  from  the  "  James  and  Cephas  and  John  " 
who  endorsed  the  gospel  of  Paul  in  47  a.  d.  in  Jerusalem,  but 
confusion  of  the  two  James  goes  back  to  a  very  early  period. 


160  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

sion  of  such  an  idealizing  factor,  especially  in  narra- 
tives such  as  the  visions  at  the  baptism  of  Jesus  and  in 
the  Mount  of  Transfiguration,  endangers  the  historical 
credibility  of  the  whole  record.  My  own  sincere  con- 
viction is  that  the  ultimate  result  of  such  critical  dis- 
crimination will  be  just  the  contrary.  It  is  the  refusal 
to  discriminate  between  the  record  itself,  and  parabolic 
attempts  to  bring  out  the  religious  values  of  the  record, 
which  makes  the  mass  as  a  whole  historically  inadmis- 
sible, and  practically  unintelligible  to  the  modern  west- 
ern mind.  It  is  as  if  in  reading  the  Talmud  we  should 
insist  upon  combining  wnth  the  text  the  edifying  com- 
mentary and  application,  which  in  the  original  are 
printed  in  small  type  round  about  the  text  in  the  mar- 
gin and  at  the  foot  of  the  page.  Discrimination  of  the 
historical  record  in  the  Gospels  from  edifying  pulpit 
exposition  and  application  is  indispensable.  It  should 
be  made  by  scholars  familiar  with  the  conventional 
Synagogue  forms,  since  the  tradition  has  been  trans- 
mitted through  the  Christianized  Synagogue.  Genuine 
appreciation  of  both  elements,  on  the  one  side  the  actual 
course  of  events,  on  the  other  the  primitive  religious 
evaluation,  will  bring  us  closer  than  ever  before  to  the 
actual  Jesus  of  JSIazareth,  and  the  real  impress  of  his 
spirit  upon  the  souls  of  men. 

But  for  the  sake  of  those  who  are  reluctant  to  be- 
lieve in  the  alleged  process  of  the  infusion  of  Petrinc 
tradition  with  Pauline  doctrine  by  methods  similar  to 
the  haggadic  teaching  of  the  Synagogue,  let  me  suggest 
two  comparisons.  First,  a  comparison  of  the  exact 
process  taking  place,  as  it  were  under  our  very  eyes, 
between  the  time  of  the  appearance  of  Mark's  Gospel, 
and  the  incorporation  of  its  narrative  in  the  later,  Pales- 
tinian Gospel  of  ]\rattlie\v.  The  latoi-  (Jospel  has  throe 
additions  to  the  Markaii  story,  all  bearing,  as  compe- 
tent   authorities    admit,    decisive    marks    of    Jewish 


BACK    TO    GALILEE.       TITE    WITNESS    OF    PETER         161 

midrash,  that  is,  elaboration  bv  the  iii=e  of  sjTiibolic 
imagination,  Thcv  are  (1)  Peter's  Walking  on  the 
Sea,  (2)  Peter's  Ordination  to  Bind  and  Loose,  (3) 
Peter's  Pa^-nient  of  the  Temple  Tax.  The  story  of 
Jesus'  "Walking  on  the  Sea  in  Mk.  G:  45-52  has  a  snp- 
plement  in  ]\It.  14:  2S-.3.3  which  further  draws  out  the 
parallel ;  for  in  Jewish  symbolism  power  to  tread  upon 
the  sea,  or  triumph  over  it,  signifies  victory  over  the 
power  of  Sheol.  In  Matthew  we  find  an  allegorizing 
parallel  to  Peter's  offer  to  go  with  Jesns  to  prison  and 
death,  the  collapse  of  his  faith  in  the  crisis  of  the  night 
of  betrayal,  his  restoration  by  the  personal  intervention 
of  the  risen  Christ,  and  finally  his  stablishing  of  his 
brethren  by  faith  in  Jesus  as  a  risen  Lord.  All  this  is 
compressed  into  a  brief  and  telling  addition  to  Mark. 
The  addition  relates  how  when  Peter  saw  Jesus  walking 
on  the  sea  he  sought  to  follow  him  over  the  waves,  how 
he  lost  faith  when  he  saw  the  storm  was  boisterous,  but 
was  rescued  by  the  Master's  extended  hand,  and  re- 
turned with  him  to  the  frightened,  despairing  company 
in  the  boat,  who  now  exclaim :  "  Truly  thou  art  the 
Son  of  God."  This  seems  to  me  a  typical  example  of 
that  kind  of  homiletic  expansion  of  sacred  story  with 
symbolic  detail  which  the  Synagogue  designates  mi- 
drash. 

A  second  Matthean  supplement  improves  upon  IVfark's 
story  of  Peter's  confession  of  the  Christ  by  adding  a 
parallel  to  what  Paul  says  of  the  revelation  of  God's 
Son  in  him,  not  by  flesh  and  blood,  but  as  an  apostle- 
ship  from  God.  In  Mt.  16 :  16b-19  the  Markan  ac- 
count of  Peter's  confession  is  emended  by  adding  the 
words  "the  Son  of  the  living  God"  to  "the  Christ," 
and  by  attaching  a  counter  declaration  from  Jesus  that 
Peter's  utterance  is  a  revelation  "  not  from  flesh  and 
blood,  but  from  my  Father  which  is  in  Heaven."  Jesus 
thereupon  pronounces  Peter  the  Pock  on  which   His 


162  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

Church  is  to  be  founded,  assuring  it  of  victory  over  the 
imprisoning  powers  of  darkness.  He  also  formally  en- 
trusts Peter  with  the  authority  to  determine  for  it  what 
is  obligatory  and  what  is  not.  Peter,  by  virtue  of  the 
revelation  of  the  Son  granted  him  by  the  Father  is  thus 
equipped  with  authority  to  speak  for  the  whole  Church. 
He  represents  Christ  and  the  Apostles  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  the  scribes  who  "  sit  in  Moses'  seat  "  have  author- 
ity "  to  bind  and  loose  "  with  respect  to  the  precepts  of 
Moses.  Of  course  this  is  a  late  addendum  to  gospel 
tradition,  though  quite  authentic  in  the  text  of  Matthew. 
For  it  is  not  an  interpolation  in  the  interest  of  Rome, 
as  Julius  Grill  and  a  few  anti-Romanists  would  make 
out.  Rome  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  evangelist's  idea. 
His  horizon  for  the  seat  of  apostolic  authority  is  strictly 
limited  to  "  the  cities  of  Israel."  We  are  here  at  an 
earlier  stage.  The  connection  of  the  name  of  Peter 
with  Rome  is  a  later  development,  growing  out  of  the 
First  Epistle  and  the  circumstances  of  Peter's  martyr- 
dom. The  passage  of  Matthew  is  as  Palestinian  and 
as  early  as  the  composition  of  the  rest  of  that  Gospel ; 
but  it  is  certainly  later  than  the  CJospel  of  Mark  which 
it  supplements.  Still  more  certainly  must  it  be  later 
than  J^aul's  defense  of  his  ovm  authority  as  an  Apostle, 
through  the  revelation  of  God's  Son  in  him;  for  the 
addition  borrows  the  very  language  of  Gal.  1 :  16, 
and  its  whole  motive  is  to  give  to  Peter's  apostleship 
a  divine  authority  at  least  e<pial  to  that  claimed  by 
Paul. 

A  third  example  of  supplementation  of  Matthew  in 
the  same  interest  follows  in  the  next  chapter.  The 
story  of  the  Coin  in  the  Fish's  Mouth  is  a  characteristic 
"edifying  tale"  (haggada)  of  Jewish  midrash,  belong- 
ing to  the  same  type  as  those  of  the  Old  Testament 
which  are  expressly  so-called,  or  (as  in  the  case  of 
J(jnalj)   are  left  to  the  conunon-sense  of  the  reader  to 


BACK  TO  GALILEE.   THE  WITNESS  OF  PETER    163 

be  understood  as  representing  not  fact  but  truth.  The 
object  of  Matthew's  story  is  to  resolve  the  perplexing 
question  of  Christian  Freedom  and  the  Giving  of  Of- 
fense. It  uses  the  phraseology  of  Paul  ("  lest  we  cause 
them  to  stumble").  It  even  applies  Paul's  principle 
of  refraining  from  the  use  of  a  liberty  to  which  as  fol- 
lowers of  Jesus  we  are  entitled  out  of  consideration  for 
others.  In  this  case,  however,  the  "  others  "  are  not 
the  scrupulous  "  weak  brethren "  of  the  Pauline 
churches  who  said  "  I  am  of  Cephas."  They  are  not 
elewish  Christians,  but  actual  Jews.  Those  who  make 
the  concession  to  avoid  "  stumbling "  represent  the 
Jewish  church  in  Palestine,  under  the  leadership  of 
Peter,  who  here  appears  again  as  representative  of  the 
Apostles  and  steward  of  Christ.  The  decision  is  to 
pay  the  temple-tax,  from  which  Christian  Jews  might 
fairly  claim  exemption,  in  order  to  prove  their  contin- 
uing loyalty  to  the  ancient  faith.  This  supplement 
also  seems  to  me  a  manifest  example  of  the  process  I 
have  designated  the  Paulinization  of  Petrine  tradition. 
Just  as  in  the  two  preceding  instances  a  supplementary 
anecdote  has  been  grafted  upon  the  stock  of  Mark  by 
Jewish-Christian  hands  at  a  period  later  than  our  form 
of  the  work.^ 

7  On  the  "  Petrine  Supplements  of  Mark's  Gospel  "  see  the  article 
of  this  title  in  Expositor  VIII,  73  (Jan.,  1917).  The  Lukan 
Gospel  also  contains  some  admirable  examples  of  midrashic  elabo- 
ration of  Mark.  The  Miraculous  Draft  of  Fishes  (Lk.  5:  1-11)  is 
a  typical  instance,  in  which  the  figure  of  Peter  assumes  the  same 
prominence  as  in  the  Matthean.  More  beautiful  is  the  contrasted 
utterance  of  the  Two  Thieves  (Lk.  23:39-43).  He  who  repre- 
sents the  bitter  disillusionment  of  the  mass  of  Israel  "  railed  on 
him,  sayinp.  Art  not  thou  the  Christ?  Then  save  thyself  and 
us,"  a  parallel  to  the  challenge  of  Satan  in  the  second  Temptation. 
The  other  replies  in  language  expressive  of  the  penitent  faith  of 
the  believing  "remnant":  "Jesus,  remember  me  when  thou 
comest  in  thy  kingdom."  Midrashic  development  of  the  canonical 
material  goes  on  even  in  the  post-canonical  Gospels,  Of  this 
character  is  the  supplementation  of  the  story  of  the  Rich  En- 
quirer in  the  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews  to  show  that  his 


16-i  JESUS    AND    PAUL. 

If  any  of  my  hearers  are  still  unconvinced  of  the 
reality  of  the  process  I  allege  of  an  infiltration  of 
Pauline  ideas  into  the  tradition  of  the  words  and  deeds 
of  Jesus  derived  from  Peter  in  the  period  after  the 
death  of  the  two  great  Apostles,  I  would  commend  to 
them,  besides  the  examples  I  have  cited  from  Matthew, 
a  close  and  careful  study,  which  I  think  will  prove 
independently  rewarding,  of  the  relation  of  the  two 
interpretative  vision-stories  of  Mark,  the  Baptism,  and 
the  Transfiguration,  with  their  Pauline  equivalents. 
These  are,  as  I  have  said,  (1)  Paul's  definition  of  the 
elective  decree  of  Adoption  and  its  fulfillment  in  the 
indwelling  of  the  Spirit  in  Jesus,  in  Col.  1 :  13-20,  (2) 
his  account  of  the  revelation  of  the  glorified  Son  of  God, 
which  gives  to  the  ministers  of  the  new  Covenant  their 
gospel  of  reconciliation  and  immortality,  as  set  forth  in 
II  Cor.  3-6  and  kindred  passages.  Both  these  vision 
stories,  or  "  revelations,"  are  key-passages  for  our  inter- 
pretation of  the  Gospel  of  Mark;  for  they  are  designedly 
so  placed  as  to  shed  the  light  of  Heaven  upon  all  the 
earthly  scenes  which  follow.  But  it  is  especially  on 
the  Transfiguration  story  that  I  would  coucentratc  your 
attention,  reminding  you  that  for  the  evangelist  no  other 
method  was  so  eft'ective  for  making  clear  to  his  readers 
the  contrast  between  a  Christ  according  to  the  things  of 
men,  such  as  Peter  had  confessed,  and  the  other- 
claim  to  have  fulfilk'd  the  law  was  unwarranted,  and  that  of  the 
healing  of  the  man  with  the  Witliered  Hand.  The  hame  ia  true 
aj^ain  of  the  addition  in  tiie  ^ame  Cioriiud  to  tiic  i)aiabk'  of  the 
Talents  of  a  fourth  servant  who  sijuandered  his  Lord's  substance 
with  flute-players  and  harlots,  and  paid  the  penalty.  Clement's 
"  mvth,  if  indeed  it  i)e  a  myth,"  of  a  young  man  "  restored  from 
the  dead  "  by  the  aged  Apostle  dohn  *is  a  still  later  example  of 
the  use  of  this  favorite  paral)le  of  the  Prodigal  Son  in  Christian 
midrash,  or,  as  Clement  ventures  to  call  it.  "myth"  Haggadic 
teaching,  whether  Jewish  or  Christian,  has  no  restrictions  in  the 
use  of  fiction  save  that  it  bring  home  the  religious  or  moral  truth 
intended.  Its  one  rule  is:  "Let  all  things  be  done  unto  edifi- 
cation." 


BACK    TO    GALILEE.       THE    WITNESS    OF    PETER         165 

worldly  messiahship  set  forth  in  Josiis'  rebuke.  I 
would  also  remind  you  that  the  doctrine  of  immortality 
through  "  transfiguration  "  (jj.f.raixop^wcn'i)  into  the  "  im- 
age "  or  "  likeness  "  of  tlie  "  body  of  glory  "  of  the 
risen  Christ,  so  that  the  exchange  of  that  "  house  from 
heaven  "  for  earthly  "  tabernacles  "  would  be  the  height 
of  folly,  is  not  a  doctrine  which  Paul  learued  from 
Peter,  but  that  it  belongs  to  the  most  vital  and  intimate 
elements  of  Paul's  o\vn  transcendent  experience.  The 
Transfiguration  story  aims  to  show  how  Peter  and  his 
companion  Apostles  were  brought  to  see  that  their  con- 
ception of  a  Christ  according  to  the  things  that  be  of 
men  was  false,  that  the  Son  of  God  belongs  essentially 
to  the  world  of  the  glorified,  and  that  the  goal  of  im- 
mortality involves  an  exchange  of  this  "  tabernacle " 
for  the  "  transfigured  body."  Its  very  phraseology  be- 
longs to  that  part  of  Paul's  vocabulary  in  which  he  bor- 
rows most  largely  from  the  modes  of  thought  and  expres- 
sion of  the  mysteries.  It  is  impossible,  therefore,  in 
this  case  to  reverse  the  relation.  It  is  as  completely  a 
Paulinized  Peter  here  as  in  the  Second  Epistle,  who 
talks  about  a  "  putting  off  of  the  '  tabernacle '  of  the 
flesh,"  and  shows  his  Jewish  "  hardness  of  heart  "  by 
wishing  to  provide  "  tabernacles  "  for  the  glorified  ones, 
as  though  it  were  for  them  to  come  and  dwell  in  ''  tene- 
ments of  clay  "  with  men  upon  the  earth. 

On  the  other  hand  a  much  greater  task  awaits  those 
of  us  who  are  convinced  that  we  must  discriminate  in 
the  Gospels  between  record  and  interpretation.  We 
hold,  in  particular  that  these  two  key-narratives  of 
vision  and  Voice  from  Heaven,  prefacing  the  two  main 
divisions  of  the  story  of  Mark,  represent  the  work  of 
some  early  Christian  haggadist  laboring  to  infuse  the 
tradition  of  Peter  with  meanings  really  derived  from 
Paul,  just  as  in  the  story  of  the  vision  at  Joppa  Peter 
receives  by  revelation  the  doctrine  that  distinctions  of 


166  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

Jew  and  Gentile,  clean  and  unclean,  are  not  of  God, 
but  of  man.  If  so  we  must  learn  to  appreciate  these 
midrashic  elements  at  their  true  value.  Our  task  is 
not  destructive  but  constructive.  We  cannot  simply 
take  away  the  interpretation  in  terms  of  religious  values 
which  Paul  has  first  put  upon  the  career  of  Jesus,  and 
after  him  some  early  teacher  of  the  Christian  synagogue 
has  embodied  in  symbolic  story,  leaving  the  record  with- 
out an  interpretation.  We  are  not  historical  critics  for 
criticism's  sake;  else  we  should  not  be  applying  its 
processes  to  a  record  which  if  it  have  not  values  for  the 
history,  psychology,  and  philosophy  of  religion  has  no 
value  at  all.  We  cannot  leave  a  mere  void  in  place  of 
the  interpretation  which  the  evangelist  has  put  upon  the 
story  of  how  Jesus  came  to  the  baptism  of  John  and 
there  dedicated  himself  to  the  reconciliation  of  wayward 
Israel  to  its  Father  in  Heaven  by  the  path  of  repent- 
ance and  faith  in  the  coming  kingdom.  In  the  Trans- 
figuration vision  the  evangelist  interprets  in  terms  of 
apocalyptic  symbolism  what  it  means  to  religion  that 
Jesus  again  dedicated  himself,  after  his  first  effort  had 
failed,  to  seek  as  Son  of  David  and  Son  of  Man  recon- 
ciliation with  God  and  realization  of  the  kingdom.  If 
we  do  not  accept  his  interpretation  we  remain  debtors 
for  a  better.  A  learned  Jewish  writer  w^ho  attempts  to 
answer  the  noble  work  of  Montefiore  to  which  I  have 
referred  declares  that  Jesus  was  not  a  prophet  because 
he  "  preached  about  the  coming  of  the  kingdom,  but  in 
vain"  (  !)  The  objector  seems  to  think  the  great  Old 
Testament  prophets,  such  as  Jeremiah,  scored  an  imme- 
diate popular  success.  We,  on  the  contrary,  are  con- 
vinced that  Jesus  neither  preached  in  vain,  nor  suffered 
in  vain.  Nevertheless  we  are  not  limited  to  the  at- 
tempts of  Paul,  or  the  age  after  Paul,  to  interpret  the 
story  sub  specie  eternitatis.  There  is  ever  room  for 
new  evaluations  of  the  record  in  terms  of  the  modern 


BACK    TO    GALILEE.       THE    WITNESS    OF    PETER        167 

history,  psychology,  and  philosophy  of  religion.  It  will 
be  interesting  to  see  if  the  modern  constructive  theo- 
logian can  do  as  well  for  our  time  as  Paul  and  his  follow- 
ers did  for  theirs. 

It  would  appear  from  the  foregoing  that  the  Petrine 
tradition  of  the  Sayings  and  Doings  of  Jesus  comes 
down  to  us  only  from  a  period  after  the  death  of  the 
gTeat  Apostles,  and  in  a  form  affected  not  only  by  the 
reaction  of  the  Greek-speaking  churches  of  the  West 
toward  the  authoritative  testimony  of  the  eye  and  ear- 
witnesses,  but  also  by  a  doctrinal  infiltration  from  the 
Pauline  side.     Are  we  thus  impoverished  in  the  ma- 
terial available  for  our  religious  faith  ?     Quite  the  con- 
trary.    The  true  basis  of  our  faith  is  not  the  bare  record 
of  Jesus'   words   and   deeds,   but   what   God   wrought 
through  him,  both  in  his  earthly  career,   and  in  the 
reaction  to  it  of  men  like  Paul.     It  includes  the  effort 
of  the  generation  after  Paul  to  combine  the  values  of 
what  Paul  had  seen,  using  the  eye  of  the  spirit,  with 
what  the  older  witnesses  had  seen  with  the  eye  of  the 
flesh.     Would   it  be   easier,   think  you,    or  harder  — 
would  it  require  less  discrimination,  or  more,  to  extract 
those  elements  of  the  story  which  have  permanent  mean- 
ing for  our  own  religious  life,  if  we  possessed  on  phono- 
graphic plates  and  photographic  films  a  complete  record 
of  all  the  thirty  years  of  Jesus'  life  ?     Selective  discrim- 
ination must  be  our  gTiide,  as  with  all  the  generations 
past,  including  the  evangelists  themselves.     And  when 
we  have  discriminated  record  from  interpretation,  his- 
torical occurrence  from  pragmatic  application,  we  shall 
not  be  worse  off  than  before,  but  better.     We  shall  see 
at  the  one  extreme  in  this  post-apostolic  age  a  radical 
wing  of  ultra-Paulinists,  endeavoring  to  interpret  the 
Incarnation  and  ResuiTcction  in  terms  of  the  mystery 
myths  of  personal  immortality  by  participation  in  the 
divine  nature.     We  shall  see  at  the  other  extreme  a  re- 


168  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

actionary  Jewish-Christian  wing,  who  would  interpret 
it  in  terms  of  Jewish  Law  and  Apocalypse.  We  shall 
see  between  tliese  two  extremes  the  central  body  of  the 
Church  driven  by  dangers  without  and  within  into  a 
rapprochement  between  "  those  of  Peter  "  and  "  those 
of  Paul  "  of  which  First  Peter  is  the  first  great  irenicon. 
We  shall  see  this  central  body  feeling  its  way  little  by 
little  to  a  faith  which  retains  the  values  from  both  sides 
that  are  practically  approved,  and  leaving  the  result  to 
future  generations. 

To  return,  then,  to  the  Gospel  of  Mark.  We  have 
here,  it  would  seem,  a  Roman  compend  of  the  sayings 
and  doings  of  Jesus,  gathered  from  the  anecdotes  of 
those  who  had  seen  and  heard  the  Lord.  The  remi- 
niscences are  turned  to  account  that  those  who  sought 
forgiveness  for  the  sake  of  the  Crucified  might  know 
what  was  meant  by  the  offering  of  his  body  and  blood, 
and  that  those  who  dedicated  themselves  in  penitence 
and  faith  might  understand  what  was  meant  by  new 
life  in  his  spirit.  Suppose  that  when  we  had  subtracted 
from  the  record  those  elements  which  the  critic  must 
regard  as  belonging  rather  to  the  interpretation  than  to 
the  record  itself,  nothing  more  were  left  than  could 
already  be  inferred  from  Paul's  own  incidental  refer- 
ences. Still  we  should  have  enough.  We  should  know 
of  one  Leader  in  the  history  of  man's  quest  for  the  life 
of  God,  whose  ideal  was  all  that  the  loftiest  aspiration 
can  conceive,  a  gospel  of  reconciliation  of  man  to  man 
and  man  to  God.  We  should  have  at  the  same  time  the 
portrait  of  One  whose  loyalty  to  that  ideal  knew  no 
shade  of  reserve,  no  taint  of  self.  We  should  know  a 
Christ  not  after  the  flesh,  but  Son  of  God  and  Son  of 
Man.  But  thank  God  that  there  is  much  more  than 
this.  As  Dr.  Morgan  admits:  "The  risen  Christ  of 
Paul  rej)resents  a  generalized  picture  of  the  historical 
Jesus.     The  central  and  the  new  fill  the  horizon  to  the 


back:  to  GALILEE.   THE  WITNESS  OF  PETER    169 

overshadowing  of  much,  the  loss  of  which  would  have 
been  an  unspeakable  calamity.  In  particular  those 
features  in  Jesus  which  make  him  so  real  and  so  human 
pass  out  of  sight.  Paul's  Christ  has  not  the  inexhaust- 
ible richness  nor  the  human  winsomeness  of  the  histori- 
cal fig-Tire."  It  is  to  this  that  the  churches  turned  after 
the  death  of  the  Apostle,  and  as  Dr.  Morgan  justly  says : 
*'  The  preservation  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels  meant  noth- 
ing less  than  the  saving  of  Christianity."  ^ 
8  Religion  and  Theology  of  Paul,  p.  40. 


LECTUEE  VII 

THE    GOSPEL    AS    LAW    AND    PROMISE 

1.  Conditions  of  the  Later  Synoptic  Period 

The  period  from  which  are  derived  the  remaining 
elements  of  the  Aramaic  Enclave,  the  writings  of  Luke, 
the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  and  the  Apocalypse  of  John,  is 
not  more  than  a  score  of  years  earlier  than  the  Epistles 
of  Ignatius  and  Polycarp.  It  is  that  of  the  Pastoral 
Epistles  in  their  present  form,  an  elaboration  of  auth- 
entic letters  of  Paul.  James  and  Jude,  encyclicals 
which  address  the  Church  at  large  in  the  name  of  two 
of  the  "  desposyni,"  are  best  assigned  to  the  same  period, 
the  closing  decade  of  the  first  century;  and  even  II 
Peter,  later  as  it  is,  and  dependent  upon  Jude.  throws 
light  upon  the  conditions  of  the  age.  All  these  episto- 
lary writers  are  greatly  concerned  for  the  morals  of  the 
Church,  threatened  as  in  Paul's  time,  but  more  danger- 
ously, by  teachers  of  antinomian  tendency. 

The  Hellenistic  conception  of  fellowship  with  God  is 
intellectual  and  mystical  rather  than  moral,  a  participa- 
tion in  His  omniscience  and  immortality  by  enlighten- 
ment, or  ritual.  The  Church  insists  upon  conduct. 
God's  nature  is  bcneticeut  goodness,  toward  which  the 
road  of  fellowship  lies  open  by  dedication  of  the  will 
to  the  fulfillment  of  His  righteous  commandment.  This 
is  the  burden  of  the  Johannine  Epistles,  which  we  con- 
sider in  the  next  lecture.  In  11  Peter  the  interest  in 
ethics  is  extended  to  eschatology.  It  supplements  the 
warning  of  Jude  against  the  antinomiaus  by  adding  a 
preliminary  chapter  on  the  certainty  of  the  promise  of 
glorification  as  guaranteed  by  the  transfiguration  vision, 

170 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    LAW    AND    PROMISE  171 

and  a  closing  chapter  reaffirming  the  certainty  and  near- 
ness of  the  predicted  judgment.  In  I-III  John,  we 
have  letters  belonging  to  about  the  same  date  and 
region.  These  also  strongly  reflect  the  antinomian  tend- 
ency, and  oppose  to  it  the  new  commandment  of  love. 
But  the  Epistles  and  Gospel  of  John  take  no  such  inter- 
est as  Second  Peter  in  the  apocalyptic  eschatology;  or 
rather  they  concede  a  more  Hellenistic  view.  They 
connect  the  heresy  with  the  docetic  doctrines  denounced 
by  Ignatius,  and  seek  their  remedy  in  worthier  ideas  of 
Jesus'  life  and  teaching.  Here,  then,  is  a  kind  of  bifur- 
cation. In  respect  to  the  "  denial  of  resurrection  and 
judgment "  the  "  Johannine  "  writings  take  one  road. 
Second  Peter  and  the  Revelation  quite  another.  But 
the  dominant  interest  of  the  age  is  an  easy  one  to  define. 
The  more  immediate  danger  is  from  those  who  "  pervert 
the  oracles  of  the  Lord  to  their  own  lusts.".  Over 
against  this  antinomian  tendency  the  current  of  ortho- 
doxy is  already  setting  strongly  toward  neo-legalism. 
In  the  Catholic  Epistles  the  life  and  death  struggle 
against  incipient  Gnosticism  has  already  begun,  but 
theoretic  Gnosticism  scarcely  affects  the  Aramaic  En- 
clave. The  Church  everywhere  is  laying  fresh  empha- 
sis upon  the  nature  of  its  gospel  as  a  "  new  command- 
ment," but  with  different  sanctions.  In  the  Aramaic 
Enclave  the  effort  is  not  (as  in  Jn.  and  I-III  Jn. )  to 
present  the  gospel  as  a  way  of  moral  union  with  God, 
so  much  as  to  reenforce  the  authority  of  the  new  com- 
mandment by  more  positive  declarations  as  to  the  com- 
ing Judgment  and  the  reality  and  certainty  of  its  re- 
wards and  punishments.  Most  conspicuously  of  all  in 
the  Palestinian  Gospel  (Matthew)  the  message  is  con- 
ceived as  Law  and  Promise. 

We  have  quoted  from  the  epistle  written  by  Polycarp 
in  112-118  to  Paul's  cluirch  in  Philippi  the  warning 
against  the  false  teachers  who  "  pervert  the  '  oracles  of 


172  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

the  Lord  '  to  their  own  lusts  and  deny  the  resurrection 
aiid  judgment."  His  hiter  associate  Papias  at  another 
Pauline  church  of  Asia,  Hierapolis,  is  still  concerned 
with  the  same  peril.  Poljcarp  had  advised  to  "  turn  to 
the  tradition  handed  doNm  to  us  from  the  bee-innimz;." 
Papias  applied  the  advice  in  the  very  practical  way  of 
publishing  a  book  of  Interpretations  of  the  Oracles  of 
the  Lord.  His  "  oracles  "  were  found  in  the  Gospel  of 
Matthew,  with  some  additions  from  Mark.  He  sought 
to  prove  their  true  meaning  as  against  Gnostic  perver- 
sion by  citing  traditions  of  Palestinian  Elders  carefully 
authenticated.  Papias'  quest  for  "  commandments 
(e'vToAai)  of  the  Lord  "  was  earlier  than  118.  His  pub- 
lication is  probably  not  earlier  than  140.  If,  however, 
we  look  backward  from  Polycarp  to  the  long  letter  of 
Clement  written  from  Pome  in  96,  with  its  repeated 
reference  to  "  sayings  "  (Aoyot;  not  Aoyta — "  oracles  ") 
of  Jesus  containing  moral  teaching,  and  to  the  Pastoral 
Epistles  with  their  emphasis  on  ''  the  healthful  words, 
even  the  sayings  (Ao'yoi)  of  our  Lord  Jesus  "  it  will  be 
quite  apparent  that  a  body  of  such  teaching  was  current 
in  the  Church  throughout  this  period.  A  new  impetus 
was  given  to  their  circulation  by  the  antinomian  peril. 
As  is  well  known,  the  two  later  Synoptic  writers,  who 
cannot  be  far  apart  in  date  since  both  use  the  same  two 
principal  sources  without  any  evidence  of  acquaintance 
with  one  another's  work,  employ  in  common  as  their 
"  second  "  source  a  compilation  of  discourses  of  Jesus. 
This  so-called  Second  Source  constitutes  in  its  surviving 
fragments  our  main  dependence  for  his  teaching.  The 
work  in  its  primary,  Aramaic  form  is  probably  older 
than  the  canonical  form  of  our  Gospel  of  Mark,  which 
seems  to  make  a  very  limited  use  of  it.  Unfortunately 
we  have  little  to  guide  us  in  determining  its  character 
and  reliability.  Besides  the  internal  evidence  there  is 
only  the  manner  in  which  the  source  is  employed  by  our 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    LAW    AND    PKOMISE  1Y3 

evangelists.  Tradition  there  is  none,  since  no  writer  of 
antiquity  so  much  as  suspects  its  existence.  The  inter- 
nal evidence  of  the  Source  is  strongly  in  its  favor ;  for 
its  material  is  derived  from  the  Aramaic,  and  in  the 
sublimity  of  its  moral  and  religious  teaching,  no  less 
than  in  the  character  attributed  to  Jesus,  it  corresponds 
much  more  closely  than  Mark  to  the  allusions  of  Paul. 
These  traits  incline  us  to  give  high  respect  to  its  wit- 
ness. On  the  other  hand  our  evangelists  disregard  its 
connections,  and  reject  most  of  such  narrative  as  it  con- 
tained in  favor  of  Mark.  This  is  hardly  compatible 
with  belief  in  its  apostolic  origin.  Moreover,  its  dis- 
courses differ  widely  from  most  of  those  in  Mark,  and 
are  framed  in  a  highly  developed  literary  style  resem- 
bling that  of  the  Stoic  diatribe,  or  still  more  nearly  the 
better  type  of  Jewish  "  Wisdom."  These  considerations 
make  it  difficult  to  regard  the  Second  Source  as  com- 
posed by  one  of  the  Twelve.  It  cannot  even  be  said  to 
bear  the  marks  of  the  eye-witness.  Nevertheless  it 
clearly  and  certainly  reflects  the  spirit  which  Paul  de- 
scribes as  "  the  mind  that  was  in  Christ  Jesus."  Indeed 
the  predominant  traits  in  its  portrait  are  precisely  that 
"  meekness  and  lowliness "  which  Paul  refers  to ; 
whereas,  curiously,  these  particular  traits  are  not  even 
mentioned  in  the  Gospel  of  Mark.  In  the  pages  of  the 
Second  Source  we  are  probably  nearer  than  in  any  other 
gospel  writing  to  the  actual  teaching  of  Jesus,  though 
even  here  we  cannot  depend  on  the  precise  words. 

Supplementation  of  Mark's  all  too  meager  account  of 
Jesus'  teaching  was  sure  to  take  place  from  this  superb 
reserve.  Indeed  it  seems  to  be  the  chief  raison  d'etre  of 
Matthew,  if  not  of  Luke  also.  As  we  have  seen,  the 
danger  most  acutely  felt  in  this  period  was  the  tendency 
to  moral  laxity.  "  Commandments  delivered  by  the 
Lord  to  the  faith  "  were  the  supreme  desideratum,  and 
this  conviction  is  the  more  strongly  shown  the  nearer  we 


174  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

approach  to  the  Jerusalem  church  with  its  body  of  "  sti(>- 
cessors  of  the  Apostles  and  kindred  of  the  Lord."  The 
epistles  of  James  and  Jude  appear,  to  be  sure,  under 
fictitious  names;  but  they  are  intended  to  reflect  ihe 
spirit  of  this  group  of  their  successors  in  Jerusalem. 
The  Epistle  of  James  would  make  an  excellent  preface 
to  the  Second  Source.  Jude  might  serve  a  similar  pur- 
pose with  respect  to  Matthew.  Mark  fell  into  the  back- 
ground chiefly  because  it  contained  so  few  of  the  "  com- 
mandments." But  there  was  clear  recognition  of  other 
defects  also  in  the  Roman  Gospel,  defects  which  could 
not  be  remedied  from  the  Second  Source,  and  therefore 
are  met  in  totally  ditTerent  ways  by  Matthew  and  Luke, 
without  any  indication  of  literary  connection,  direct  or 
indirect,  between  the  two. 

There  was  first  Mark's  beginning.  The  genealogies 
of  Matthew  and  Luke,  inconsistent  as  they  are,  of  course 
represent  a  reversion  to  the  primitive  belief,  attested 
by  Paul  but  neglected  by  Mark,  that  Jesus  was  "  of  the 
seed  of  David  according  to  the  flesh."  How  to  preserve 
this,  and  at  the  same  time  to  hold  to  the  higher  concep- 
tion of  a  spiritual  birth  after  the  Pauline  teaching,  was 
of  course  a  problem.  It  could  no  longer  be  solved  by 
the  Markan  method  of  a  prologue  to  the  Gospel  describ- 
ing under  the  form  of  vision  the  descent  of  the  Spirit  of 
Adoption,  declaring  Jesus  the  Beloved  Son  of  God's 
"  good  pleasure,"  and  enduing  him  with  all  the  pow- 
ers of  the  age  to  come.  Lleretics  had  already  laid  hold 
of  this  prologue  and  made  it  their  own.  Adoptionism 
(as  it  later  came  to  be  called)  was  the  sheet  anchor  of 
Docetics  like  Cerintlius,  who  maintained  that  Jesus 
was  a  mere  "  receptacle  of  the  Holy  Spirit,"  a  Christ 
who  came  by  water  (of  baptism)  only,  and  not  by  blood 
(of  the  sacrament  of  his  suffering).  To  ensure  both  a 
continuous  and  unbroken  full  presence  of  the  divine 


THE    GOSPEL   AS    LAW   AND    PEOMISE  175 

Spirit  in  a  real  humanity  no  other  way  seemed  open  than 
thai  which  our  supplementers  of  Mark  independently 
adopt.  As  Isaac  was  "  God-begotten  "  by  a  word  of 
promise,^  so  Jesus  by  special  miracle  had  been  "  the  Son 
of  God  "  from  his  mother's  womb. 

Even  more  conspicuous  than  at  the  beginning  was  the 
need  for  supplementation  at  the  end  of  Mark.  The 
complete  divergence  of  the  later  evangelists  in  their  story 
from  the  moment  they  reach  the  point  where  the  mutil- 
ated Mark  breaks  off,  suggests  that  this  mutilation  had 
already  occurred.  It  cannot  have  been  accidental,  but 
must  be  due  to  dissatisfaction  with  the  story  of  the  ap- 
pearance to  Peter  "  in  Galilee."  Whether  the  dissatis- 
faction was  due  to  the  doctrinal  or  the  geogTaphic  repre- 
sentation we  cannot  say.  We  do  know,  however,  that 
questions  as  to  the  nature  of  the  resurrection  body  had 
been  vehemently  agitated  between  Jewish  Christian  and 
Greek  Christian  since  Paul  had  written  to  the  Corinth- 
ians. In  this  age  of  docetic  heresy,  as  may  readily  be 
seen  from  the  Ignatian  Epistles,  it  was  doubly  urgent. 
What  part  the  birth  in  real  manhood  from  the  Virgin 
Mary,  and  the  resurrection  in  real  "  flesh  "  (^avd(TTa(jt<s 
T^s  aapK6<;)  has  to  play  in  this  age  of  docetic  heresy  we 
may  learn  from  its  baptismal  confession,  commonly 
called  the  Apostles'  Creed.  Luke  is  more  largely  con- 
cerned in  his  supplements  with  the  refutation  of  docetic 
heresy,  Matthew  with  Jewish  objections  to  the  Markan 
story  of  the  empty  sepulchre.  But  these  additions  of 
the  later  evangelists  at  beginning  and  end  of  the  Roman 
Gospel  are  principally  of  interest  to  the  student  of  early 
apologetic.  They  tell  us  indirectly  what  was  the  course 
of  debate  over  the  nature  of  the  body  in  which  Jesus 
came  into  and  went  out  of  the  world,  but  are  of  far  less 
importance  to  the  student  of  his  life  than  the  teaching 

iRom.  4:  16-21;  9:  6-9. 


176  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

drawn  by  both  North-Syriau  and  Sonth-Syrian  evan- 
gelist in  common  from  their  mysterious  Second  Source. 

2.  The  Teaching  Source 

In  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  the  "  double-tradition " 
material,  or  material  shared  with  Luke  though  not  de- 
rived from  Mark  and  commonly  designated  Q,  is  nearly 
all  consolidated  into  five  books  of  precepts,  the  first  of 
which,  the  so-called  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  is  familiar 
to  us  all.  The  narrative  merely  serves  as  an  introduc- 
tion to  these,  just  as  the  Pentateuch  narrative  frames  in 
the  gi*eat  discourses  in  which  Moses  presents  the  law. 
Each  of  the  five  books  into  which  the  substance  of  the 
Gospel  is  divided  begins  with  such  narrative,  combining 
material  from  Mark  and  the  Second  Source  in  various 
proportion.  Only  in  Book  IV  (Chapters  14-18)  is 
the  narrative  introduction  derived  almost  entirely  from 
Mark.  On  the  other  hand  nearly  all  the  narrative  intro- 
duction to  Book  III  (Chapters  11-13)  is  from  Q. 
Each  of  the  five  books  of  Matthew  concludes  with  a  stere- 
otyped formula  repeated  from  the  end  of  the  first  book, 
where  it  had  occurred  in  the  Second  Source.  The  bor- 
rowing and  application  of  the  formula  proves  this  five- 
fold division  to  be  really  intended  by  the  compiler ;  but 
the  two  chapters  on  the  Infancy  form  a  Prologue,  and 
the  story  of  the  Passion  and  Kesurrection  in  Chapters 
26-28  an  Epilogue.  The  evangelist  has  thus  given  us  a 
five-fold  book  of  the  new  Torah,  which  with  PrologTie 
and  Epilogue  contains  seven  divisions  in  all.  In  the 
second  century  the  five-fold  division  seems  to  have  been 
still  observed ;  for  a  versified  "  argiimentum,"  of  a  type 
characteristic  of  that  age,  celebrates  Matthew's  refuta- 
tion "  in  five  books  "  of  the  dcicide  people  of  the  Jews.^ 

I  cannot  now  take  time  to  describe  these  five  bodies 

2  See  Bacon,  Expositor,  VIII,  85   (Jan.,  1918). 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    LAW    AND    PROMISE  177 

of  j)recepts  of  the  Lord,  the  five  Sermons  (or  Pereqs,  as 
Sir  Jolin  Hawkins  lias  called  tlieni)  of  Matthew.  Only 
the  first,  whose  theme  is  The  lii^uhteonsness  of  Sons,  is 
wholly  made  up  of  Q  material,  not  in  its  original  order, 
but  based  on  an  ori,uiual  Q  discourse  expanded  with  other 
Q  material.  There  are  four  others.  That  on  The  Duty 
of  tlie  Evangelist,  occupies  chapter  10,  that  on  the 
Mystery  of  the  Kingdom  occupies  verses  1-52  of  chapter 
13,  that  on  The  Duty  of  the  Church  Ruler  occupies 
chapter  IS,  and  that  on  The  Final  Judgiuent  occupies 
chapters  23-25.  These  four  are  based  on  briefer  dis- 
courses of  Mark  filled  out  with  Q  material.  Three 
things  prove  the  arrangement  secondary.  (1)  The  de- 
struction of  the  order  of  the  Second  Source,  even  in  the 
Sermon,  on  the  Mount,  where  no  Markan  pattern  called 
for  readjustment ;  (2)  the  use  of  a  Markan  basis  for  the 
other  Sermons;  (3)  the  incorporation  of  considerable 
masses  of  Q  in  the  narrative  introductions,  particularly 
in  chapters  3—4,  and  11-12.  These  structural  phe- 
nomena show  that  the  present  arrangement  of  Q  in  Mat- 
thew is  not  that  of  the  source,  but  is  due  to  our  canonical 
evangelist,  whose  idea  of  the  w^orld's  needs  in  this  line 
is  shown  by  his  conclusion.  The  Apostles  are  sent  to 
teach  all  men  everywhere  "  to  observe  all  things  whatso- 
ever I  have  commanded  you." 

Critics  generally  hold  our  own  canonical  evangelist 
responsible  for  the  agglutination  of  diverse  Q  material 
in  Matthew's  version  of  the  Sermon  on  The  Righteous- 
ness of  Sons,  because  in  Luke  it  is  referred  to  various 
more  appropriate  occasions.  Unfortunately  a  large 
number  of  critics,  perhaps  the  majority,  have  been  mis- 
led by  the  mistaken  idea  that  ancient  tradition  in  some 
way  connects  the  Second  Source  with  the  name  of  Mat- 
thew. They  therefore  take  this  late  Gospel,  constructed 
in  the  interest  of  a  neo-legalistic  type  of  Christianity, 
more  or  less  as  the  model  for  their  reconstructions.     We 


178  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

are  even  told  that  Q  was  not  a  gospel  at  all,  but  a  mere 
agglutination  of  "  oracles  "  (Aoyta)  ;  that  it  contained 
few  such  anecdotes  as  Mark,  and  no  account  at  all  of  the 
Passion  and  Resurrection.  Still  it  is  admitted  that  it 
began  with  a  fuller  account  than  Mark's  of  the  Ministry 
of  the  Baptist,  and  of  Jesus'  Baptism  and  Temptation; 
that  it  included  at  least  the  anecdote  of  The  Believing 
Centurion,  besides  others,  which  owing  to  their  being 
also  reported  by  Mark  are  not  identifiable;  and  that  its 
central  theme  was  Israel's  rejection  of  "  the  Son  of 
Man."  This  is  hard  to  reconcile  with  the  theory  of  a 
mere  collection  of  sayings.  Indeed  had  it  not  been  for 
this  false  connection  with  the  Apostle  Matthew  more 
would  doubtless  have  recognized  that  not  the  order  only, 
but  the  whole  spirit  and  purpose  of  this  ancient  gospel 
(for  most  emphatically  it  was  a  "gospel")  are  more 
nearly  reflected  in  Luke  than  in  Matthew.  Had  its 
structure  been  compared  with  the  setting  of  the  great 
discourses  of  Luke  on  Abiding  Wealth  (Lk.  12 :  13-34), 
or  Effectual  Prayer  (Lk.  11 :  1-13;  18:  1-8),  or  those 
of  Acts  1-7,  our  insight  into  its  true  nature  and  bearing 
on  the  portraiture  of  Jesus  would  be  far  clearer  than  is 
now  the  case. 

The  fact  that  our  first  evangelist  subordinates  this 
source  to  the  Gospel  of  Mark  for  all  narrative  material, 
especially  toward  the  close  of  the  story,  makes  it  impos- 
sible to  determine  what  part,  if  any,  of  the  narrative 
material  peculiar  to  Luke  is  taken  from  it.  Luke  does 
diverge  quite  widely  from  Mark  in  narrative,  especially 
in  the  Passion  story,  but  as  our  recognition  of  Q  depends 
on  his  coincidence  with  Matthew,  and  Matthew  here 
fails,  we  lose  our  primary  means  of  identification. 
Further  inference  can  proceed  on  but  two  grounds: 
We  may  say:  Matthew  would  have  diverged  along  with 
Luke,  if  the  Second  Source  had  offered  important  mate- 
rial.    This  is  the  common  mode  of  reasoning,  and  is 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    LAW    ANI>    PEOMISE  1Y9 

valid  within  certain  limits.  The  other  ground  of 
reasoning,  is  that  of  internal  affinities  connecting  double 
with  single  or  triple-tradition  material.  The  primary 
definition  of  Q  is  :  "  coincident  material  of  Matthew  and 
Luke  not  contained  in  ]\Iark."  The  definition  is  cer- 
tainly too  narrow  for  the  Source,  which  we  might  desig- 
nate S.  S  was  greater  than  Q  because  the  Second 
Soui"ce  undoubtedly  contained  some  of  the  material 
which  now  appears  only  in  Matthew  or  only  in  Luke 
(single-tradition),  as  well  as  some  which  appears  in  all 
three  Synoptics  (triple-tradition  material)  and  thus 
eludes  identification.  Of  course  the  attempt  to  identify 
this  further  content  of  S  by  affinity  with  the  known 
elements  is  most  precarious.  Inference  must  be  accom- 
panied with  a  double  ?  ?.  On  the  other  hand  it  is 
quite  wrong  to  act  as  if  Q  (double-tradition  material) 
and  the  Second  Source  were  the  same  thing.  If  we 
were  to  treat  S  and  Q  as  geometrical  areas  and  super- 
impose the  one  upon  the  other  we  should  find  the  out- 
line of  each  extending  beyond  that  of  the  other  at 
various  points.  Some  of  Q  should  probably  not  be 
includt'd  in  S,  and  much,  no  doubt,  that  is  not  included 
in  Q  really  should  be;  though  identification  is  pre- 
carious. 

Limiting  ourselves  to  the  admitted  factors  it  is  still 
possible  from  Q  alone  to  define  certain  general  charac- 
teristics of  the  Second  Source  which  will  greatly  help 
us  in  our  endeavor  to  place  alongside  the  Petrine  tradi- 
tion of  Mark  an  independent  early  estimate  of  the  char- 
acter and  career  of  Jesus.  As  already  intimated  there 
is  a  decided  difference.  The  Second  Source  will  be 
found  to  coincide  much  more  nearly  than  Mark  with  the 
conception  of  Paul,  though  Paul's  also  is  an  idealized 
portrait,  in  which  the  Suffering  Servant  of  Deutero- 
Isaiah  forms  the  background.  I  will  mention  but  three 
features  in  this  primitive  Gospel's  portraiture  of  Jesus : 


180  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

its  conception  of  Jesus'  relation  to  the  Baptist,  its  doc- 
trine of  faith,  and  its  theory  of  the  person  and  work  of 
the  Christ. 

(1)  It  is  only  in  Q  that  we  gain  any  insight  into  the 
work  of  John  the  Baptist  as  a  movement  of  independent 
sigTiificance.  Were  we  to  judge  by  the  meager  refer- 
ences of  Mark,  we  should  imagine  this  really  mighty  and 
epoch-making  movement  in  the  religious  life  of  con- 
temporary Judaism  as  a  mere  preliminary  to  Christian- 
ity. For  Mark  as  for  the  late  Ephesian  evangelist  the 
Baptist  has  no  significance  in  himself.  He  is  a  mere 
anoiuter  of  the  Christ  sent  solely  to  draw  attention  to 
him.  We  should  have  learned  a  truer  valuation  from 
the  question  put  by  Jesus  to  the  delegation  from  tlie 
Sanhedrin  concerning  John,  if  not  from  Josephus, 
and  from  the  later  history  of  the  Baptist  sects.  Unlike 
Mark,  in  Q  full  credit  is  given  to  the  Baptism  of  John 
as  the  supreme  "  sign  of  the  times."  It  forms  a  parallel 
in  Israel  to  the  appearance  of  Jonah  with  his  message  of 
warning  to  the  Ninevites.  It  is  an  even  more  fateful 
sign,  because  Nineveh  repented,  whereas  Israel  did  not. 
In  Q  Jesus  declares  John  the  greatest  born  of  women, 
more  than  a  prophet,  because  he  stands  like  the  promised 
Elijah  at  the  threshold  of  the  coming  Kingdom,  turning 
the  heart  of  Israel  back  again  in  the  "  great  repentance  " 
before  the  end,  and  thus  "  preparing  the  way  "  for  the 
coming  of  Jehovah.^  In  this  Source  he  expressly  cliar^ 
acterizes  the  work  of  John  as  a  "  way  of  justification  " 
which  the  publicans  and  sinners  wek'omed  by  repent- 
ance and  faith,  when  the  self-righteous  did  not  even 
repent  themselves  after  they  saw  the  sign.  On  the 
other  hand  this  source,  unlike  Mark,  represents  John  as 
unconscious  of  the  mission  of  his  great  disciple.  John 
hears  of  Jesus'  work  of  healing  and  comfort  to  the  poor 
and  penitent,  and  sends  to  enquire  if  this  may  perchance 
3  Not  as  Mk.  1 :  1  ff .  takes  it,  the  coming  of  Jesus. 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    LAW    AXD    PROMISE  181 

be  tlie  expected  Christ.  Jesns  sends  but  an  evasive 
answer,  bidding  him  note  the  character  of  the  work  and 
take  no  offense  at  the  person  of  the  agent.  This  occa- 
sion is  then  made  the  point  of  departure  in  Q  for  a  long 
discourse  whereby  the  writer  brings  out  the  rehitive 
character  of  the  two  movements,  showing  how  that  of 
Jesus  corresponds  to  the  work  of  the  Isaian  Servant, 
who  brings  healing,  comfort  and  "  glad  tidings  to  the 
poor.''  In  the  same  connection  he  proceeds  to  show  the 
guilt  of  Israel  in  "  stumbling  "  at  this  work,  which  is 
really  that  of  the  Wisdom  of  God,  and  will  be  "  justi- 
fied "  in  that  minority  of  the  people  who  can  be  called 
Wisdom's  "  children."  The  rest  remain  under  heavier 
condemnation  than  the  Gentiles  because  of  their  greater 
opportunity. 

If  any  of  us  fail  to  remember  how  lightly  Mark 
passes  over  all  this  Q  material  about  the  Baptist,  how 
he  makes  John  prepare  the  way  not  of  Jehovah's,  but 
only  of  Jesus'  coming,  it  would  be  well  to  read  through 
the  Gospel  of  Mark  once  more,  and  note  the  difference. 
IsTot  only  is  the  representation  of  the  Second  Source  in- 
comparably more  historical,  especially  in  its  recognition 
that  the  Baptist  has  no  divine  revelation  of  the  character 
and  work  of  Jesus,  but  its  parallel  between  the  two  move- 
ments, in  which  the  message  of  Jesus  follows  upon  that 
of  the  Baptist  as  the  Isaian  message  of  comfort  and 
healing  follows  upon  the  warning  of  Jonah  "  yet  forty 
days  and  Nineveh  shall  be  destroyed,"  is  in  highest  de- 
gree instructive.  It  conveys,  as  we  shall  see,  the  whole 
point  of  view  of  this  primitive  evangelist. 

(2)  From  this  Q  comparison  between  the  work  of' 
Jesus  and  that  of  John  in  the  narrative  introduction  to 
Matthew's  third  book  (Mt.  11-12)  let  us  turn  to  certain 
Q  elements  in  the  introduction  to  the  first  book  (Mt. 
3:  7-12;  4:  1-10).  The  first  is  the  Baptist's  preach- 
ing of  Repentance,  which  Mark  was  not  interested  to 


182  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

record,  though  we  have  strong  reason  to  believe  that  he 
had  it  before  him.  Its  point  is  certainly  not  far  from 
the  Pauline  doctrine  that  not  they  are  children  of  Abra- 
ham who  descend  from  him  according  to  the  flesh,  but 
those  who  show  his  faith.  In  Q  the  message  of  John  is : 
"  Abrahamic  descent  gives  no  guarantee  of  escape  from 
the  coming  wrath  of  God.  God  can  make  children  of 
Abraham  from  the  stones.  Wash  you,  make  you  clean, 
put  away  the  evil  of  your  doings,  or  a  more  terrible 
baptism  awaits  you:  The  fire  of  judgment  predicted 
by  Malachi."  Thus  in  Q  the  contrast  is  not,  as  in  Mark, 
between  a  baptism  of  water  (John's)  and  a  baptism  of 
the  Spirit  (Christian),  but  between  the  baptism  of  water 
unto  repentance  now  offered,  and  the  purifying  flame  of 
Jehovah's  threshing-floor,  destroying  the  chaff  for  ever- 
more. However,  I  have  already  said  enough  regarding 
what  we  learn  from  Q  as  to  the  independent  value  of 
John's  ministry  and  as  to  its  nature.  I  must  pass  on 
to  the  Temptation  story,  a  section  which  serves  in  the 
Second  Source  a  purpose  similar  to  that  of  the  prologue 
of  Mark  or  John ;  that  is,  it  gives  the  reader  a  survey  of 
the  career  that  opens  before  Jesus  as  "  the  Son  of  God." 
It  defines  under  symbolic  forms  what  is  involved  in  the 
term.  It  is  implied  in  the  Temptation  story  that  it 
followed  upon  and  elucidated  some  account  of  the  Bap- 
tism and  Voice  from  Heaven.  As  before,  Mark  was  not 
sufficiently  interested  in  this  Q  section  to  give  its  content, 
though  when  he  comes  to  the  question  what  is  involved 
in  the  title  Son  of  God,  he  does  not  fail  to  avail  himself 
of  the  language  of  Jesus'  reply  to  Satan  in  it.  In  Mk. 
8 :  33,  its  language  is  directed  against  Peter,  who  in  re- 
sisting the  doctrine  of  a  martyr-Christ  makes  himself 
the  tool  of  Satan. 

As  I  said,  the  point  of  tlie  midrashic  temptation-story 
is  to  interpret  the  Clu-istian  sense  of  the  title  Son  of 
God,  whicb  had  just  been  divinely  revealed.     We  may 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    LAW    AND    PKOMTSE  183 

therefore  conclude  that  tlie  "  triplo-tradition  "  (Markan) 
story  of  the  vision  at  the  baptism  is  really  derived  in 
the  main  from  the  Second  Source.  At  all  events  it  is 
based  on  the  Isaian  Servant-song  "  Behold  my  Servant 
whom  I  have  chosen,  my  Beloved  on  whom  my  soul  fixed 
her  choice;  I  will  put  my  Spirit  upon  him;  he  shall 
bring  forth  judgment  (mishpat,  i.  e.,  knowledge  of  God) 
to  the  Gentiles."  Jesus  is  the  Servant-Son.  We  shall 
best  get  the  idea  of  the  parabolic  attachment  known  as 
the  Temptations  by  turning  to  one  of  the  greatest  of  the 
pre-Christian  Wisdom  writings  in  which  the  Isaian  fig- 
ure of  Israel  as  Jehovah's  suffering  Servant  is  developed. 
I  may  again  remind  you  that  in  this  Greek  writing,  the 
so-called  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  the  titles  of  Servant 
(Trais)  and  Son  (wo?)  are  used  interchangeably.  Both 
stand  for  Israel  as  the  agent  of  Jehovah  in  restoring  the 
world.  In  the  second  chapter  of  Wisdom  a  long  poem 
describes  the  suffering  and  the  shameful  death  to  which 
the  Eighteous  one  is  exposed  by  enemies  who  deride  his 
claim  to  be  the  Servant  of  the  Lord  and  to  have  knowl- 
edge of  Him.  Because  he  claims  that  "  God  is  his 
Father,"  and  believes  that  '"'  if  the  righteous  man  is 
God's  Son  He  will  uphold  him  "  the  wicked  put  him  to  a 
shameful  death,  to  try  if  his  words  be  true.  The 
martyrdom  issues  in  a  crown  of  immortality  for  the 
Righteous  Servant,  and  the  poet  concludes  with  the  fol- 
lowing general  application. 

The  souls  of  the  righteous  are  in  God's  hand. 
And  no  torment  shall  touch  them. 
In  the  eyes  of  the  foolish  they  seemed  to  have  died; 
Their  departure  was  accounted  disaster, 
And  their  journeying  away  from  us,  ruin. 
But  they  are  in  peace,  having  a  hope  full  of  immortality. 
God  made  trial  of  them  and  found  them  worthy  of  HimseK, 
And  He  will  reign  over  them  for  evermore. 
They  that  trust  in  Him  (ol  TreTrot^oTes  cV  aurw)  shall  under- 
stand truth. 


184  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

And  those  that  are  faithful  in  love  (ot  tticttoI  iv  dyaTrg)  shall 
have  their  dwelling  with  Ilim. 

I  make  the  quotation  in  slightly  abbreviated  form  not 
merely  as  a  parallel  to  the  second  temptation  (which 
shows  how  he  that  is  truly  God's  Sou  is  really  upheld  by 
Him  even  if  in  the  eyes  of  the  foolish  he  seems  to  have 
trusted  in  vain),  but  to  make  clear  that  in  both  cases 
the  victory  is  a  victory  of  "  faith."  Satan  says:  "  cast 
thyself  down ;  for  it  is  written  '  He  shall  give  His  angels 
charge  concerning  thee.'  "  The  answer  is  in  substance 
"  Tnist  God,  and  be  obedient  even  unto  death."  It  is 
for  Him  to  test  thee,  not  for  thee  to  put  Him  to  the  test. 
Faith  and  faithfulness,  trust  and  "  faithfulness  in  love  " 
(a  term  that  comes  very  close  to  Paul's  "  faith  working 
through  love  "),  are  the  qualities  by  which  God  "  makes 
trial  of  "  those  who  should  be  His  Sons. 

Another  quotation  from  the  same  Wisdom  writing  will 
show  still  more  clearly  the  writer's  idea  of  the  training 
of  God's  sons  in  "  faitli,"  and  will  at  the  same  time 
show  still  closer  affinity  with  the  Temptation  story. 
Wisdom  16:20-20  employs  the  same  passage  from 
Deuteronomy  which  is  placed  in  the  moutli  of  Jesus  in 
the  first  Temptation,  and  in  the  same  application.  Ac- 
cording to  Wisdom  Israel  was  given  "  bread  from 
Heaven  "  in  the  wilderness  in  order  "  that  thy  sons 
whom  thou  lovest  (oi  wtot  aov  ov<;  rjydTn](ja<;)  ^  O  Lord,  might 
learn  that  it  is  not  the  growth  of  earth's  fruits  that  nour- 
isheth  a  man,  but  that  Thy  word  preserveth  them  that 
have  faith  in  Thee."  Men  who  had  read  this  passage  of 
Wisdom  would  hardly  need  elaborate  exposition  to  teach 
them  the  meaning  of  the  Temptation,  "  If  thou  art  the 
Son  of  God  command  that  these  stones  be  made  bread." 
They  would  certainly  not  need  special  parallels  to  ex- 
plain to  them  the  third  tem])tiiti(in  willi  its  contrast  of  a 
"Son  of  God"  who  sits  on  the  throne  of  David,  the 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    LAW    AND    PROMISE  185 

kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the  glory  of  them  at  his  feet, 
with  another  who  rejects  all  this  as  a  kingdom  of  Satan, 
a  kingdom  according  to  the  things  of  men. 

We  have  dwelt  long  on  the  Temptation  stories  because, 
as  I  said,  they  serve  in  Q  the  purj)ose  of  a  general  intro- 
duction to  the  scenes  of  Jesus'  life,  explaining  by  their 
symbolism  in  what  sense  his  claim  to  be  the  Son  of  God 
is  to  be  understood,  and  how  his  humble  obedience  unto 
death,  even  the  death  of  the  cross,  so  far  from  conflicting 
with  the  scriptural  ideal,  is  precisely  in  line  with  the 
divine  purpose  as  revealed  by  Isaiah  and  those  who  fol- 
lowed with  similar  insight.  I  do  not  think  any  of  us 
will  fail  to  note  how  momentous  a  part  is  played  here  by 
the  qualities  of  "  faith  "  and  "  love  "  as  the  basis  of 
divine  "  sonship,"  nor  how  near  we  come  along  this  line 
to  the  teaching  of  Paul.  I  have  time  now  only  for  one 
more  citation  from  the  Second  Source,  and  I  shall  choose 
it  in  such  a  way  as  to  bring  out  the  writer's  theory  of 
the  person  of  Christ,  and  of  the  way  in  which  God 
works  through  him  to  the  fulfillment  of  His  redemptive 
purpose. 

(3)  We  have  had  occasion  already  to  observe  in  pass- 
ing that  this  source  has  a  noticeable  parallel  to  Paul's 
doctrine  of  the  "  spoiling  "  of  the  Powers  of  darkness, 
and  the  working  of  the  Spirit  as  evidence  that  the  reign 
of  God  is  already  a  potential  reality.  I  have  also  had 
occasion  to  point  out  that  the  conception  of  Jesus'  work 
of  healing  and  glad  tidings  to  the  poor,  as  well  as  the 
depiction  of  his  calling  to  be  a  "  Son  "  in  the  sense  of 
the  submissive  and  martyred  Servant,  presuppose  the 
same  conception  as  Paul  sets  forth,  based  on  the  Servant- 
songs  of  Isaiah.  There  is,  however,  this  difference,  that 
in  the  Second  Source  this  Isaian  conception  is  even 
more  strongly  tinctured  than  in  Paul  with  ideas  charac- 
teristic of  the  later  Wisdom  literature.  Not  that  any- 
thing here  appears  of  preexistence,  or  the  activities  of 


186  JESUS    AND    PAUL. 

"Wisdom  as  the  Firstborn  of  the  creation,  but  of  her 
redemptive  activity  as  God's  agent  in  winning  back  lost 
and  erring  hnmanity.  Look  at  the  sequel  to  the  Q  con- 
text which  condemns  unbelieving  Israel  in  comparison 
with  the  believing  and  penitent  "  children  of  Wisdom," 
and  which  predicts  that  the  "  cities  which  believed  not  " 
will  fare  worse  in  the  judgment  than  Tyre  and  Si  don, 
or  Nineveh  that  repented  at  the  warning  of  Jonah.  We 
find  here  as  the  closing  appeal  in  ]\rt.  11 :  25  ff.  a  typical 
Hymn  of  Wisdom.  The  first  strophe  is  a  thanksgiving 
of  the  Son  to  the  Fatlier  for  the  hiding  of  the  mystery 
from  human  knowledge,  and  the  revelation  of  it  to 
"  babes."  Such,  the  h\TQn  declares,  was  the  "  good 
pleasure  "  (evSoKia)  of  the  Father.  A  second  strophe  de- 
clares that  the  Father  gives  full  knowledge  of  Himself 
to  the  elect  Son  in  order  that  this  saving  knowledge  may 
be  conveyed  through  the  Son  as  agent  to  as  many  as  he 
wills.  The  third  strophe  is  not  found  in  the  Lukan 
form,  but  it  continues  with  Wisdom's  invitation  to  all  the 
weary  and  toil-worn  to  take  upon  them  her  easy  yoke 
and  learn  her  "  meekness  and  lowliness,"  which  will  give 
rest  to  their  souls.  No  student  of  lyric  Wisdom,  with 
its  appeals  to  wayward  men,  and  its  claims  to  a  knowl- 
edge of  God  given  only  to  His  chosen,  can  mistake  the 
nature  of  this  hymn.  It  follows  the  stereotyped  form 
of  such  lyrics,  in  which  "  Wisdom  praises  herself  "  as 
the  means  of  human  redemption.  She  speaks  here  in 
the  name  of  the  Isaian  Servant-Son,  whose  mission  is  to 
bring  back  all  the  wandering  races  of  men  by  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  true  God.  The  writer  of  the  Second  Source 
places  it  in  the  mouth  of  Jesus  because  as  supreme  leader 
in  the  divinely  given  redemptive  mission  of  Israel  the 
Servant  is  "  Wisdom  "  incarnate.  We  can  all  recognize 
at  once  a  close  connection  with  Paul's  teaching  in  I  Cor. 
1 :  18-2 :  16  concerning  the  mind  of  Christ  as  a  wisdom 
hidden  from  the  worldly-wise,  but  revealed  to  us  by  the 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    LAW    AND    PROMISE  187 

Spirit.  It  is  more  important  for  us  at  present  to  notice 
that  the  use  of  it  in  this  connection  admits  us  to  a  very 
close  view  of  the  distinctive  Christologv  of  the  Second 
Source.  This  evangelist  too  has  his  conception  of  the 
divine  "good  pleasure"  (evSaKia).  It  is  an  indwelling 
of  the  "  fullness  "  of  the  Spirit  of  Adoption  in  Jesus  as 
the  chosen  Son,  the  representative  of  Israel  as  the  elect 
Servant  of  God,  he  whose  mission  is  to  bring  the  world 
to  the  saving  knowledge  of  the  Father.  This  evangelist, 
too,  thinks  of  the  Servant  as  "  despised  and  rejected  of 
men."  He  too  believes  in  the  "  hiding  of  the  mystery  " 
from  all  but  the  "  little  ones  "  who  are  Wisdom's  chil- 
dren, as  do  Paul  and  many  other  Hellenistic  writers  of 
the  period.  And  he  believes  strongly  in  the  shaming 
of  the  imbelief  of  Israel  by  the  repentance  and  faith  of 
the  Gentiles.  The  last  point  is  made  peculiarly  em- 
phatic by  such  anecdotes  as  the  believing  Centurion,  and 
such  warnings  as  the  denunciation  of  the  Galilean  cities 
that  "  believed  not."  It  is  easy  to  see  that  if  this 
writer's  story  of  the  baptismal  vision  is  based  (as  it 
would  seem)  on  the  passage  from  the  Servant-song: 
"  Behold  my  Servant  whom  I  have  chosen,  my  Beloved 
on  whom  my  soul  fixed  her  choice,  I  will  put  my  Spirit 
upon  him  "  the  influence  was  not  limited  to  these  words, 
nor  to  the  representation  of  the  divine  Spirit  as  the 
brooding  dove,  the  messenger  of  peace  and  reconcilia- 
tion."* The  succeeding  context  is  also  reflected :  "  He 
shall  bring  forth  true  religion  (mishpat)  to  the  Gen- 
tiles." This  becomes  unmistakable  in  a  further  explicit 
quotation  from  Wisdom  writings  which  in  Matthew's 
order  comes  at  the  very  close  of  Jesus'  public  teaching, 
and  clearly  reflects  the  author's  view  of  its  outcome  so 

4  Because  of  the  cooing  tones  of  this  bird,  always  the  charac- 
teristic spoken  of  in  Jewish  references.  The  divine  Spirit  of 
Wisdom  utters  her  message  of  winning  entreaty  in  these  tones. 
According  to  rabbinic  teaching  the  \oice  from  Heaven  (bath  qol) 
was  like  the  gentle  cooing  of  a  dove. 


188  JESUS    AXD    PAFL 

far  as  Israel  is  concerned.  In  the  Lukan  form  the  ut- 
terance is  explicitly  ascribed  to  "  the  Wisdom  of  God." 
Indeed  none  other  than  this  redemptive  Spirit  could 
claim  to  have  sent  the  "  prophets,  wise  men,  and 
scribes,"  whom  Israel  had  persecuted  and  rejected. 
Only  she  can  appropriately  compare  herself  to  the 
mother-bird  who  has  sought  again  and  again  to  gather 
Zion's  children  as  a  bird  gathers  her  nestlings  under  her 
protecting  wings.  This  is,  then,  an  utterance  of  the 
divine  Spirit  of  redeeming  Wisdom.  It  repeats  in  sub- 
stance what  the  Old  Testament  Chronicler  had  said 
shortly  after  his  reference  to  the  stoning  of  Zechariah 
between  the  altar  and  the  temple :  "  God  sent  to  them 
by  His  messengers,  rising  up  early  and  sending,  because 
He  had  compassion  on  His  people,  and  on  His  dwelling- 
place:  but  they  mocked  the  messengers  of  God,  and  de- 
spised His  words,  and  scoffed  at  His  prophets,  until  the 
wrath  of  Jehovah  rose  against  His  people,  till  there  was 
no  remedy."  x\ll  this  is  embodied  in  the  poetic  lament 
of  the  rejected  Spirit  of  God  which  begins:  "  Behold  I 
send  unto  you  prophets  and  sages  and  scribes,"  recalling 
the  shedding  of  their  blood  from  Abel  to  Zechariah,  and 
denouncing  Jerusalem  as  murderer  of  the  prophets.  It 
closes  witli  the  words:  "Behold,  your  house  (the 
dwelling-place  of  God's  Spirit  of  Wisdom)  is  left  unto 
you  forsaken.  For  I  say  unto  you,  Ye  shall  not  see  me 
henceforth,  till  ye  shall  say  '  Blessed  be  he  that  cometh 
in  the  name  of  Jehovah,'  "  that  is,  until  ye  receive  God's 
messengci's  with  blessing,  instead  of  insult  and  abuse. 
The  quotation  appears  in  Q  as  the  closing  utterance  of 
Jesus'  public  ministry.  But  the  primitive  evangelist 
would  not  have  so  employed  it  had  it  not  expressed  per- 
fectly his  conception  of  Jesus'  ministry  to  Israel  and  its 
outcome.  We  have,  therefore,  in  spite  of  the  frag- 
mentary nature  of  the  material,  a  clear  view  both  in 
prospect  and  retrospect  of  this  precanouical  evangelist's 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    LAW    AXU    PROMISE  189 

conception  of  the  person  and  work  of  Jesus,  Jesus  was 
to  Lis  mind' the  supreme  embodiment  of  the  redeeming 
Wisdom  of  God,  which,  as  Wisdom  of  Solomon  puts  it 
"  in  every  generation,  entering  into  holy  souls  makcth 
men  to  be  prophets  and  friends  of  God."  As  divinely 
appointed  leader  of  Israel  to  the  fulfillment  of  its  destiny 
to  be  Jehovah's  Son  and  Servant  to  bring  the  knowledge 
of  Him  to  all  that  are  afar  off,  Jesus  summed  up  the 
message  of  all  the  pro])hets  and  sages.  But  he  also  met 
their  fate,  which  is  rejection  and  martyrdom.  In  faith 
and  obedience  he  fulfills  his  task,  accepted  in  Israel  only 
by  a  believing  remnant  of  the  "  little  ones,"  and  meet- 
ing larger  measure  of  faith  only  among  the  Gentiles. 
But  a  time  of  vindication  and  return  is  coming,  and  the 
beloved  "  dwelling-place,"  now  forsaken  of  God,  will  see 
His  presence  again.  It  will  he  when  they  greet  with  the 
hosannas  of  the  redemption  feast  the  messengers  of  peace 
whom  now  they  kill  and  persecute  from  city  to  city. 
Little,  therefore,  is  really  wanting  to  make  our  under- 
standing of  this  Avriter's  theory  of  the  person  and  work 
of  Christ  complete.  It  is  a  Wisdom  Christology,  whose 
affinity  with  Paul's  is  strikingly  close.  And  yet  there  is 
no  doctrine  of  the  cross.  What  might  be  found  if  we 
could  restore  the  missing  close,  the  record  of  the  Supper 
and  its  farewell  message,  falls,  of  course,  beyond  our  ken. 
All  that  can  be  said  is  that  had  the  doctrine  that  God 
made  His  Sei-vant's  soul  an  offering  for  sin  been  really 
present  some  trace  would  have  been  likely  to  survive. 
As  it  is,  the  Epistle  of  James,  with  its  conception  of  the 
implanted  wisdom  of  God  as  the  source  of  all  holiness,  is 
not  far  from  this  teaching  of  sonship  by  true  gnosis. 
On  the  other  hand  James  falls  far  indeed  below  the 
level  of  this  writer's  doctrine  of  saving  "  faith." 

Our  real  portrait  of  Jesus  as  he  was  can  be  drawni 
from  no  one  of  these  sources  alone.  Petrine  tradition 
may  supply  the  element  of  the  heroic  and  ideal,  Paul 


190  JESUS    AKD    PAUL. 

may  lend  aid  w4tb  liis  speculative  apologetic  and  his 
mystical  experience,  but  we  shall  ever  owe  to  this  un- 
known evangelist  of  the  Second  Source  the  choicest, 
most  exquisite  reflection  of  the  teaching;  and  it  is  in 
this  as  well  as  in  his  life  and  death  of  devotion  that 
Jesus  proves  his  supreme  right  to  be  called  the  chosen 
Son.  It  is  not  only  by  making  his  soul  an  otfering  for 
sin  that  he  "  justifies  many."  The  Serv^ant  brings  peace 
and  reconciliation  to  the  world  by  his  "  knowledge  of 
the  Father." 

3.  The  Christian  Prophets  and  Their  Message 

In  the  pseudonymous  Epistle  knoAvn  as  Second  Peter 
we  have  a  striking  example  of  the  manner  in  which  the 
post-apostolic  age  combined  renewed  emphasis  upon 
commandment,  with  zeal  for  its  sanction  in  reward  and 
punishment  in  an  impending  day  of  judgment.  Once 
the  great  crisis  was  over  wherein  Roman  persecution 
under  Domitian  had  threatened  the  Church  with  actual 
extinction,  it  was  keenly  realized  that  the  remaining 
peril  (perhaps  after  all  the  greater  one)  was  moral 
laxity.  The  doctrine  of  grace  and  forgiveness,  still 
more  the  conception  of  Christianity  as  gnosis,  gave  op- 
portunity to  new  teachers  who  turned  the  grace  of  God 
into  lasciviousness,  perverting  the  new  commandment 
of  love  to  their  own  lusts,  contemptuous  of  abstinence 
from  meats  offered  to  idols,  as  unworthy  the  attention 
of  one  whose  gnosis  teaches  him  that  no  idol  is  any- 
thing in  the  world,  and  even  looking  indulgently  upon 
immoralities  connected  with  heathen  worship.  In  an 
encyclical  of  a  single  chapter  a  writer  of  this  age  ad- 
dresses the  Church  at  large  under  the  name  of  Jude  the 
brother  of  James,  fulminating  against  the  false  teachers 
of  moral  laxity  in  languiigo  largely  borrowed  from  such 
writings  as  Enoch  and  the  Assumption  of  Moses.     Sec- 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    LAW    AND    PROMISE  191 

ond  Peter  follows  suit,  incorporating  the  whole  of 
Jude's  denunciation  of  the  followers  of  Cain,  Balaam, 
and  Korah,  but  prefixing  a  chapter  on  the  testimony  of 
the  Transfiguration  to  the  reality  of  the  resurrection 
body,  and  appending  another  on  the  certainty  of  the 
coming  judgment.  These  two  pseudonymous  epistles 
show  the  conditions  at  tlie  close  of  the  century.  In  the 
same  way  the  student  who  will  give  adequate  attention 
to  the  distinctive  characteristics  of  the  individual  Gos- 
pels will  find  that  our  Gospel  of  Matthew,  a  writing  of 
the  same  period,  reflects  the  same  feeling.  It  com- 
bines its  systematic  arrangement  of  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  in  the  form  of  "  commandments  "  and  the  ac- 
companying repeated  denunciations  of  those  who  teach 
and  work  "  lawlessness  "  with  an  elaborate  depiction  of 
divine  reward  and  punishment  which  goes  far  beyond 
anything  to  be  found  in  the  other  Gospels.  We  have 
already  observed  to  some  extent  how  in  Synoptic  litera- 
ture the  "  turning  back  to  the  tradition  handed  down  to 
us  from  the  very  first "  becomes  increasingly,  from 
Mark  to  Luke  and  from  Luke  to  Matthew,  a  reaction 
to  neo-legalism.  We  have  now  to  observe  how  at  about 
the  same  period,  among  the  Greek-speaking  Pauline 
churches  of  Ephesus  and  its  vicinity,  another  element  of 
the  older  Aramaic  teaching  material  is  resurrected  in 
Greek  form  to  meet  the  new  danger. 

Among  the  three  examples  current  among  the 
churches  in  the  second  century  of  what  was  called 
"  prophecy,"  that  is,  the  utterances  of  the  "  prophets  " 
in  the  form  of  apocalypse,  or  revelation,  only  one  out- 
lived the  intense  opposition  roused  by  the  excesses  of 
the  millenarian  followers  of  Montanus.  The  apoca- 
lypses of  Peter  and  of  Hermas  lost  ground  and  were 
finally  discarded.  The  Ephesian  apocalypse  which 
bore  the  name  of  "  John  "  would  have  shared  this  fate 
but  for  the  vigorous  assertion  of  its  authenticity  by  men 


192  JESUS    AND    TAUL 

such  as  Papias  and  Justin.  By  the  narrowest  possible 
margin,  and  solely  because  it  was  declared  to  be  the 
writing  of  an  Apostle,  the  Revelation  of  John  finally 
succeeded  in  maintaining  its  place  among  the  Western 
churches.  Thanks  to  the  violent  dispute  over  this 
"  prophecy,"  as  it  calls  itself,  we  have  more  precise  and 
definite  statements  from  the  earliest  writers  concerning 
its  origin  than  about  any  other  in  the  entire  canon.  It 
was  declared  to  have  appeared  at  Ephesus  ''  in  the  end 
of  the  reign  of  Domitian."  In  all  save  the  underlying 
material,  drawn  from  older  compositions,  in  part  at 
least  from  the  reign  of  jS^ero,  this  traditional  date  is 
fully  confirmed  by  modern  criticism.  Revelation  in  its 
present  form  is  an  Ephesian  work  of  93-95  a.  d.  The 
visions  of  the  main  body  of  the  work  are  indeed  con- 
cerned with  the  conflict  between  Jerusalem  and  Rome, 
and  have  neither  mention  of  the  churches  of  Asia,  nor 
trace  of  interest  in  their  vicissitudes ;  whereas  the  intro- 
ductory Epistles  of  the  Spirit  to  these  seven  Pauline 
churches  are  just  as  destitute  on  their  part  of  interest 
in,  or  mention  of,  the  Palestinian  situation,  l^ever- 
theless  introductory  letters,  and  incorporated  visions  are 
both,  it  would  seem,  translated  from  the  Aramaic. 
There  seems  to  be  the  strongest  reason  to  regard  the 
work  as  composite.  The  prefixed  letters  and  the  epi- 
logue at  the  end,  in  which  it  is  represented  that  the  vi- 
sions were  all  granted  to  the  Apostle  John,  brought 
"  for  the  word  of  God  and  the  testimony  of  Jesus  "  to 
the  isle  of  Patmos,  must  of  course  belong  to  the  age  of 
Domitian,  as  already  shown.  No  other  situation  is  pos- 
sible for  them.  On  the  other  hand  the  main  body  of 
the  work  whose  scenes  and  interests  arc  purely  Pales- 
tinian, certainly  contains  elements  belonging  to  the 
struggle  against  Nero  and  the  destruction  of  the  tem- 
ple. Its  author  speaks  of  the  Apostles  objectively, 
placing  himself  outside  their  number,  and  ranking  him- 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    LAW    AND    PKOMISE  193 

self  definitely  as  one  of  the  hierarchy  of  Christian 
"  prophets."  It  is  of  course  only  natural  if  the  later 
reviser  reissues  the  work  in  Ephesus  equipped  with  in- 
troductory Epistles  to  the  Churches  of  Asia,  that  these 
epistles  should  be  full  of  imagery  derived  from  the  in- 
corporated visions.  But  why  should  this  portion  also 
have  been  written  in  Aramaic  ?  The  fact  (for  it  seems 
to  be  such)  has  been  brought  up  as  a  serious  objection 
to  the  theory  of  adaptation  to  the  conditions  of  Asia 
in  93-95  of  a  Palestinian  book  of  prophecy  (or  prophe- 
cies) of  65-70.  At  first  sight  it  really  seems  so.  The 
evidences  of  translation  are  quite  as  strong  in  the  first 
four  chapters  and  the  last  as  in  the  rest  of  the  book. 
But  in  order  to  carry  out  the  dramatic  mise  en  scene 
which  assumes  that  the  speaker  is  the  Apostle  John 
writing  from  Patmos  at  the  dictation  of  the  Spirit,  it 
would  be  natural  for  an  editor  whose  own  mother- 
tongue  was  Aramaic  to  represent  the  Apostle  as  using 
his  native  language,  even  if  actual  use  among  the 
churches  addressed  required  (as  it  evidently  did)  sub- 
sequent translation  into  Greek.  Hence  even  if  the  en- 
tire book  (except  perhaps  the  first  three  verses  and  the 
last)  be  shown  to  be  translated  from  the  Aramaic,  this  is 
no  real  obstacle  to  the  theory  of  composite  origin.  At 
least  it  offers  none  to  the  view  here  advocated,  that  the 
visions  of  4 :  1-22 :  7  are  merely  adapted  from  earlier 
Palestinian  "  prophecies  "  to  the  situation  in  procon- 
sular Asia  "  in  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Domitian."  Can 
we  derive,  in  any  event,  from  this  peculiar  and  primi- 
tive literature  a  conception  of  Jesus  as  seen  by  the 
Christian  prophets  ? 

It  is  singular  how  completely  the  danger  from  the  in- 
roads of  heresy  in  the  seven  churches  of  Asia  seems  to 
have  driven  out  of  the  mind  of  the  author  of  the  intro- 
ductory epistles  the  conflict  which  is  the  sole  concern 
of  the  rest  of  the  book.     After  4 : 1  the  whole  field  is 


194  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

occupied  with  the  great  battle  of  Christ  and  Anti- 
Christ,  the  ultimate  triumph  of  the  new  Jerusalem,  the 
city  of  the  saints,  over  Babylon  the  Great,  the  city  of 
the  Beast  and  the  false  prophet.  Not  a  word  appears 
of  the  foe  within.  Even  the  false  prophet  is  an  open 
supporter  of  the  worship  of  the  Beast,  and  depends  upon 
his  weapons  of  raging  violence.  This  Devil  goeth  about 
as  a  roaring  lion.  In  the  letters  the  situation  is  differ- 
ent. We  have  one  allusion  to  a  single  case  of  martyr- 
dom which  has  occurred  some  time  before  in  Pergamum, 
the  seat  of  emperor-worship,  and  one  warning  of  a  "  ten 
days'  "  outbreak  against  the  church  in  Smynia.  Other- 
wise there  is  no  reference  to  persecution.  The  general 
situation  is  rather  that  of  the  reaction  and  lassitude 
which  come  after  days  of  heroic  resistance.  Sardis  is 
indolent,  Laodicea  has  become  so  rich  and  self-satisfied 
as  to  scarcely  retain  its  place  as  a  church.  Even  Ephe- 
sus  has  left  its  first  love,  and  Pergamum,  where  Antipas 
had  been  martj'red,  is  not  exhorted  to  hold  out  against 
persecution,  but  against  the  Balaamites  and  Nicolaitans 
who  teach  an  immoral  heresy.  The  Devil  has  adopted 
a  new  line  of  attack.  lie  is  now  no  longer  a  roaring 
lion,  but  a  seducing  serpent. 

It  is  quite  apparent  from  the  reference  to  tlie  Balaam- 
ites in  2 :  14  that  the  heretical  tendency  is  identical 
with  that  combatted  by  Paul  in  I  Cor.  10.  In  like 
manner  it  is  apparent  that  the  depiction  of  the  glorified 
Christ  in  the  introductory  chapters,  while  it  systemati- 
cally reproduces  the  traits  of  the  warrior  on  the  white 
horse  who  appears  in  the  closing  vision  (19 :  11-22:  7) 
as  the  Word  of  God  ^  has  also  definitely  Pauline  traits, 
as  when  he  is  called  in  1 :  5  "  the  firstborn  of  the  dead," 
who  "  loved  us  and  loosed  us  from  our  sins  by  his 
blood  " ;  or  in  1 :  18  receives  attributes  barely  less  than 

6  That  is,  the  Babylonian  destroying  Word,  the  IIel)re\v  Alemra, 
as  in  Wisdom  of  Solomon  IS:  lof. ;  not  Iloqma,  wiiich  is  Logos 
in  the  sense  of  "  Wisdom." 


THE    GOSrEL    AS    LAW    AND    PROMISE  195 

the  eternal  self-existence  which  in  1 :  8,  4:  8,  and  21:  6 
belongs  to  the  Almighty.     Pauline  influence  therefore 
makes  itself  felt  here,  and  perhaps  in  the  closing  vision 
of  the  conquering  Memra-Logos  in  19:llff. ;  though 
of  course  the  representation  as  a  whole  is  purely  Jew- 
ish, borrowing  copiously  from  the  visions  of  Daniel  and 
Ezekiel.     But  when  we  come  to  the  inner  substance  of 
the  book  nothing  whatever  remains  of  these  Pauline 
traits.     The  figure  that  represents  Christ  is  always  and 
constantly  the  "  Lamb  (apviov)  as  it  had  been  slain," 
that  is,  not  the  mute  lamb  of  the  Isaian  Song  of  the 
martyred  Servant   (d|Uvds),  but  the  male  "yearling  of 
the  flock  "  prescribed  for  the  celebration  of  Passover, 
the  feast  of  redemption.     "When  the   royal  court   of 
Heaven  is  set,  and  the  books  of  judgment  are  opened, 
none  is  found  worthy  to  open  the  book  of  life  save  the 
Lion  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  the  Scion  of  David,  who 
was  slain  and  who  purchased  to  God  with  his  blood  men 
of  every  tribe  and  tongue,  and  made  them  a  kingdom 
and  priests  to  the  God  of  Israel,  to  reign  upon  the  earth. 
In  Chapter  7  he  is  seen  as  Leader  of  the  army  of  the 
144,000  martyrs,  shepherding  them  in  the  heavenly  pas- 
tures, and  guiding  them  to  unfailing  springs.     A  new 
series  of  prophecies  begins  with  Chapter  11.     The  tem- 
ple is  measured  off,  as  in  Ezekiel,  to  be  preserved  from 
the  treading  down  by  the  Gentiles  which  is  to  be  the 
fate  of  the  outer  court  and  "  the  holy  city,"  a  repre- 
sentation surely  first  formulated  before  TO  a.  d.,  and 
Palestinian  in  origin.     In  the  city  appear  the  two  "  wit- 
nesses of  Messiah,"  Moses  and  Elijah,  bearing  their  tes- 
timony.    Satan  secures  their  martyrdom,  and  for  three 
days  and  a  half  their  dead  bodies  lie  in  the  street,  the 
sport  of  the  mob.     But  God  raises  them  from  the  dead 
and  they  ascend  to  heaven  in  a  cloud,  after  which  comes 
the  consummation ;  but  only  after  a  new  interlude  in 
which  Michael  and  his  angels  intervene  to  preserve  the 


196  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

woman  with  the  child  who  is  to  rule  all  nations,  against 
the  dragon's  attempt  to  destroy  her.  Foiled  in  his  at- 
tempt the  dragon  goes  away  to  make  war  with  the  rest 
of  the  woman's  seed,  who  are  explained  to  be  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  This  further  war,  waged  by  angels  on 
behalf  of  the  Lamb  and  his  following  of  martyrs,  who 
now  appear  on  ]\rount  Zion,  results  in  the  overthrow  of 
the  Beast  and  his  following,  and  the  destruction  of 
Babylon  the  Great.  The  scene  closes  with  the  mar- 
riage supper  of  the  Lamb.  The  seer  is  on  the  point  of 
worshiping  the  angel  who  coiulncts  him,  but  is  forbid- 
den. One  can  hardly  avoid  recognizing  here  a  reflec- 
tion of  events  in  Jerusalem  in  the  great  crisis  of  62-70, 
to  which  older  prophecies,  perhaps  pre-Christian,  have 
been  adapted. 

Many  features  of  this  vision  of  the  redeeming  Lamb 
are  carried  over  into  the  remaining  vision  of  the  con- 
quering Memra-Logos  and  the  appearance  of  the  new 
Jerusalem,  but  not  all ;  and  where  the  term  ''  the  Lamb  " 
is  used  it  is  incongruous.  Especially  incongruous  is 
the  repetition  of  the  seer's  former  attempt  to  worship 
the  angel  (22  :  8 ;  cf.  19  :  10).  We  cannot  therefore  re- 
gard the  book  as  a  unit,  and  are  compelled  to  carry  back 
some  parts  of  it  to  the  period  before  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem  when,  as  we  learn  from  Josephus,  James  the 
leader  of  the  Palestinian  church  was  stoned  by  the  mob 
in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,  together  with  others  whom 
Josephus  does  not  name.  From  a  fraguient  of  Papias, 
and  some  further  evidence  it  becomes  probable  that  one 
of  those  who  shared  the  fate  of  .1  ames  in  the  year  02  was 
John  the  son  of  Zebedee,  whose  brother  had  been  be- 
headed by  Agrippa  I,  in  41-42  a.  d.  Our  author  seems 
to  be  comparing  the  martyr  pair  to  Moses  and  Elijah, 
who  were  expected  to  appear  just  before  the  consumma- 
tion as  "  witnesses  of  the  Messiah  "  and  to  suffer  this 
fate.     Our   chief   interest,   however,    is   not    with    the 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    LAW    AND    PROMISE  107 

course  of  events,  interesting  as  they  are.  They  may  be 
reflected  in  this  primitive  "  prophecy  "  whose  deriva- 
tion is  so  remote  from  the  infiuence  of  Paul  that  even 
,the  doctrine  of  the  sufferinc;  Servant  scarcely  appears. 
But  we  are  chiefly  interested  to  note  the  character  and 
nature  of  Jesus,  as  he  appears  to  the  eye  of  this 
"  prophet,"  who  is  not  even  of  the  number  of  the  Twelve, 
though  taken  to  be  "  John  "  by  the  Ephesian  adapter  of 
the  visions.  Let  the  attribution  to  "  John  "  have  value 
or  not,  we  at  least  have  here,  in  the  older  elements  of 
this  composite  book,  a  primitive  Christian  "  prophecy  " 
from  the  home-land  of  Jesus.  Its  conception  of  Christ 
carries  us  directly  back  to  the  very  beginnings;  for  it 
reverts  to  the  sjinbolism  of  the  farewell  Passover,  the 
self-dedication  to  martyrdom  in  the  cup  of  the  new 
covenant.  Its  very  foundation  is  the  promise  of  the 
heavenly  banquet,  in  which  the  Son  of  Man,  Jesus, 
would  sit  down  with  the  Twelve  in  his  kingdom,  and 
they  should  reign  with  him  in  the  new  Jerusalem. 
Other  features  connected  with  the  Pauline  Christology 
appear  in  the  later  elements,  but  at  bottom  the  concep- 
tion is  simply  that  of  Jesus'  parting  words.  He  is  for 
the  seer  of  Revelation  the  Son  of  David,  who  became  a 
passover  victim  (ro  apviov)  that  he  might  redeem  the 
people  of  God.  Ill  indeed  could  we  spare  these  visions 
of  Palestinian  prophets.  We  may  be  grateful  that  they 
were  preserved  to  us  by  the  effort  of  an  Ionian  church 
to  combat  antinomian  heresy  and  to  hold  up  the  moral 
standards  of  a  degenerate  time  by  revival  of  the  ex- 
pectation of  judgment  and  of  the  approaching  end  of 
the  age,  whatever  judgment  we  pass  on  the  editor's  rep- 
resentation of  the  authorship.  From  the  midst  of  the 
martyrdoms  of  that  great  crisis  of  the  mother  church 
its  "  prophets  "  look  up  to  Jesus  as  their  Passover,  slain 
on  their  behalf,  and  interceding  for  them  "  in  the  midst 
of  the  throne." 


LECTURE  VIII 

THE    GOSPEL    AS    THEOLOGY 

[Among  the  "  Aspects  of  Contemporary  Theology  "  which 
we  are  here  invited  to  consider  ^  is  the  Keinterpretation  of 
the  Fourth  Gospel  in  view  of  conclusions  of  criticism  regard- 
ing its  authorship  and  date  which  must  now  be  admitted  to 
have  at  least  a  considerable  measure  of  probability.  If  it  be 
the  work  of  an  unknown  Ephesian  disciple  of  Paul  of  about 
the  year  100-110,  what  will  be  its  meaning  and  value  to  us  ? 

All  the  advance  of  modern  exegesis  over  the  past  may  be 
summed  up  in  one  great  foundation  principle  of  what  is 
known  as  grammatico-historical  interpretation.  The  princi- 
ple may  be  stated  as  follows:  The  real  contribution  of  any 
biblical  writer  to  the  religious  thought  of  our  time  must  be 
found,  if  at  all,  in  the  message  he  intended  to  convey  to  his 
own.  He  wrote  primarily  for  his  contemporaries.  Therefore 
what  his  language  and  his  references  meant  to  them  is  the 
measure  of  legitimate  interpretation.  There  is  no  royal  road 
to  direct  application.  The  leaps  of  undisciplined  fancy  are 
sauts  perilleux.  We  have  indeed  the  largest  liberty  of  ap- 
plication and  adaptation  once  the  author's  real  intention  has 
been  discovered.  In  most  cases  he  himself  will  be  found  to 
have  set  the  example  in  adapting  the  work  of  his  predecessors. 
But  we  have  no  right  to  cloak  our  own  ideas  with  the  mantle 
of  his  authority,  nor  may  we  lightly  dispense  ourselves  from 
the  long  and  toilsome  search  of  grammarian  and  liistorian 
into  the  conditions  of  the  author's  time.  That  background 
and  environment  of  language,  thought,  and  circumstance  af- 
ford the  only  legitimate  key.  First  the  historical  sense,  after 
that  the  inference  or  lesson. 

I  am  asked  at  this  time  to  expand  a  lecture  recently  given 
on  the  service  of  the  fourth  evangelist  to  his  own  age,  and  to 

1  The  general  subject  of  discussion  proposed  for  the  Summer 
School  of  Theology  at  Oxford  was  "  Aspects  of  Contemporary 
Theology."  The  section  here  printed  in  smaller  type  was  prelixed 
to  the  closing  lecture  of  the  former  series,  in  order  to  adapt  it 
(in  expanded  form  as  two  lectures)   for  the  Summer  School. 

198 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    THEOLOGY  199 

include  his  contribution  to  ours.  The  method  must  be  that 
of  the  principle  stated.  In  the  lectures  which  preceded  I 
traced  the  line  of  development  whicli  leads  over  from  the  gos- 
pel of  the  kingdom  preached  hy  Jesus  in  Galilee  to  the  gospel 
about  Jesus  preached  by  his  diseiples  and  Paul  to  the  world. 
The  so-called  "Johannine"  writings  (by  which  are  usually 
meant  the  three  Epistles  and  Gospel  ascribed  to  John,  but 
wliich  unlike  the  Revelation  are  anonymous)  mark  the  su- 
preme achievement  in  this  development.  Antiquity  and  mod- 
ern Christendom  alike  recogiiize  the  fourth  Gospel  as  the  in- 
terpretative climax  of  New  Testament  literature.  Con- 
sciously or  not,  this  evangelist  has  placed  the  key-stone  in  the 
arch  whose  piers  are  on  the  one  side  the  Pauline  and  post- 
Pauline  Epistles,  on  the  other  the  Synoptic  literature  and 
Book  of  the  Revelation.  Antiquity  names  him  "  the  theo- 
logian," appreciating  that  in  his  work  foundations  are  laid 
on  which  all  later  theology  has  built,  though  when  the  name 
was  coined  it  had  not  as  yet  attained  its  modern  sense.  But 
the  fourth  Gospel  does  present  the  story  of  Jesus  as  theology. 
What  then,  was  the  purpose  and  bearing  of  this  higher  syn- 
thesis ?] 

1.  The  Higher  Synthesis 

The  greatest  of  Paul's  disciples  was  an  unnamed  suc- 
cessor in  Ephesus,  the  headquarters  of  his  mission  field. 
This  is  the  writer  who  in  the  so-called  "  Johanniue  " 
Epistles  and  Gospel  seeks  to  combine  the  values  of  the 
Synoptic  record  of  the  sayings  and  doings  of  Jesus  with 
the  Pauline  Christology.  As  I  have  tried  to  show  in 
the  volume  entitled  Uie  Fourth  Gospel  in  Research  and 
Det>ate  it  is  no  fault  of  this  author  if  the  name  of 
"  John  "  (which  he  himself  does  not  so  much  as  men- 
tion) became  attached  to  his  work  in  an  age  which  had 
begun  to  demand  apostolic  authentication.  To  meet 
this  demand  a  later  hand  has  attached  the  well  known 
appendix  to  the  Gospel  (Chapter  21).  But  this  section 
is  admitted  even  by  Lightfoot  and  Zahn  to  be  at  least 
in  part  an  editorial  postscript.  In  fact  it  does  not  seem 
to  be  known  to  the  epitomntor  of  the  resurrection  gospel 
who  quotes  Jn.  20  :  11  fP.,  in  Mk.  16 :  9-11.     And  even 


200  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

the  Appendix  does  not  as  yet  venture  explicitly  to  name 
the  Apostle  John  as  author.  It  attributes  the  writing  to 
the  mysterious  "  beloved  disciple  "  who  appears  in  it  on 
several  occasions.  The  name  ''  John  "  is  not  mentioned 
in  connection  with  the  Gospel  until  181  a.  d.  The  first 
claims  to  Johannine  authorship  were  made  in  behalf  of 
the  Apocalypse,  which  had  emanated  from  the  same 
region  in  the  year  93,  and  which  from  the  lirst  had 
purported  to  be  the  work  of  the  Apostle.  It  is  easy  to 
see  what  would  happen.  However  diverse  in  character, 
language,  and  doctrinal  standpoint  (and  no  two  writ- 
ings of  the  entire  ^STew  Testament  are  more  so),  the  four 
anonymous  writings  of  the  Ephesian  canon  (the  Epistles 
and  Gospel)  would  inevitably  come  to  be  attributed  to 
the  same  apostolic  hand  as  the  pseudepigraphic  fifth,  the 
Revelation.  The  Appendix  meets  the  demand  for  au- 
thentication with  an  adaptation  of  the  legend  of  the 
Two  Witnesses,  "  red  "  and  "  white  "  martyrdom.  But 
it  purposely  leaves  the  precise  identity  of  the  "  beloved 
disciple  "  undetermined.  Still  it  makes  the  conjecture 
of  John  very  easy,  and  by  the  last  quarter  of  the  second 
century  the  hint  had  been  widely  adopted.  The  Gospel 
and  First  Epistle  as  well  as  the  Apocalypse  were  attrib- 
uted to  the  Apostle.  There  was  strenuous  denial,  but 
this  was  overcome  by  the  efforts  of  Ireuaeus  together 
with  his  pupil  Hippolytus  and  men  like-minded.  Only 
the  Second  and  Third  Epistles,  which  bore  on  their  face 
the  superscription  "  the  Elder,"  were  still  classed  for  a 
time  with  the  "  disputed  "  writings.  Ultimately  all  five 
were  considered  "  Johannine."  The  belief  in  Apostolic 
authorship  could  not  but  deeply  affect  the  interpreta- 
tion. What  would  our  interpretation  be  were  it  quite 
unaffected  by  this  assumption  %  That  is  the  question  we 
must  now  attempt  to  answer. 

Papias  and  the  author  of  the  Muratorian  Fragment 


THE    GOSPEL,    AS    THEOLOGY  201 

seem  to  have  found  First  Peter  a  useful  writing  on 
which  to  base  an  introduction  to  the  second  Gospel. 
We  have  ourselves  found  that  the  Epistle  of  James 
might  be  similarly  applied  to  the  Second  Source,  and 
Jude  to  the  Gospel  of  Matthew.  But  at  Ephesus  proph- 
ets and  evangelists  furnished  their  own  introductory 
epistles.  Kevelation  has  seven  preliminary  letters;  so 
that  it  is  not  (as  the  Muratorianum  has  it)  Paul  who 
follows  the  example  of  his  predecessor,  John,  in  writing 
to  seven  churches  by  name  in  order  to  address  all,  but 
it  is  Pseudo-John  who  follows  the  example  of  Paul. 
The  fourth  evangelist  also  seems  to  appreciate  the  value 
of  covering  letters,  but  he  limits  himself  to  the  example 
of  Paul's  group  of  three  letters  sent  to  this  same  region, 
one  personal,  to  Philemon,  one  to  a  local  church,  Colos- 
sians,  and  one  general,  Ephesians.  In  like  manner  the 
"Elder's"  letter  to  Gains  (III  Jn.)  covers  a  second 
to  the  local  church  (II  Jn.),  which  is  accompanied  in 
turn  by  a  third,  the  general  epistle  (I  Jn.).  From 
these  so-called  "  Johannine  Epistles,"  wherein  the  au- 
thor addresses  himself  directly  to  his  readers  using  the 
first  and  second  person,  we  can  gain  some  insight  into 
the  conditions  which  gave  rise  to  them  and  to  the 
Gospel. 

In  the  Johannine  Epistles  it  is  not  persecution,  as  in 
the  Revelation,  which  is  the  peril  of  the  churches,  but 
false  doctrine.  In  fact  the  author  repeatedly  and  ex- 
plicitly identifies  the  Anti-Christ  with  the  specific  heresy 
which  denies  that  Jesus  Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh,  that 
is,  Docetism.  He  thus  excludes  the  idea  of  the  Apoca- 
lyptist,  who  quite  as  explicitly  identifies  Anti-Christ 
with  the  persecuting  power  of  Rome.  The  false  teach- 
ers have  the  same  pronounced  tendency  to  moral  laxity 
complained  of  by  Jude,  Matthew,  II  Peter,  the  Pastoral 
Epistles,  and  the  Epistles  of  the  Spirit  to  the  churches 
of  Asia.     But  in  First  John  as  in  Ignatius  false  doc- 


202  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

trine  is  apprehended  as  the  chief  danger.  The  Docetic 
and  Gnostic  character  of  the  heresy  no  longer  admits  of 
doubt.  The  false  teachers  aspire  to  fellowship  with 
God.  They  have  mysticism  without  morality.  They 
claim  to  have  knowledge  of  God,  and  even  to  be  begot- 
ten of  Him;  but  they  seek  this  communion  by  way  of 
the  intellect  rather  than  of  the  will.  They  are  "  Gnos- 
tics "  who  forget  the  "  new  commandment  "  of  love,  and 
ignore  the  teaching  of  Jesus  and  of  Paul  that  to  par- 
take in  the  divine  life  as  beloved  children  we  must 
be  imitators  of  Him:  that  we  must  ''  walk  in  love,  even 
as  Christ  loved  us  and  gave  himself  for  us,"  because  (as 
this  writer  adds)  love  is  the  essential  quality  of  the  di- 
vine nature.  The  danger  apprehended  by  the  Johan- 
nine  writer  is  then  fundamentally  the  same  "  lawless- 
ness "  (avo/At'a)  combatted  by  the  Epistles  of  Jude, 
James,  and  II  Peter,  by  the  later  Synoptists,  and  by 
the  introductory  Letters  of  the  Apocalypse.  But  the 
reaction  against  it  is  from  the  side  of  Paulinism,  not 
from  that  of  the  Palestinian  tradition. 

The  situation  of  the  Church  at  this  time  imperatively 
demanded  new  emphasis  upon  the  teaching  and  the  life 
of  Jesus.  It  confronted  the  vague  emanation  doctrines 
of  the  Docetists,  who  held  to  an  aeon-Christ  that  comes 
by  water  only,  and  not  by  water  and  blood,  a  particular 
theophany  of  the  divine  Logos,  which  had  occupied  the 
body  of  an  otherwise  negligible  Jesus  as  its  "recepta- 
cle "  until  just  before  the  cross,  the  martyrdom  of  Cal- 
vary having  been  an  illusion ;  for  so  we  have  it  still  in 
the  docetic  Acts  of  John.  Against  this  kind  of  theo- 
sophic  religiosity  it  was  vitally  important  to  insist  upon 
the  historical  and  tangible  reality  of  the  apostolic  testi- 
mony. The  Church  bears  witness  of  things  actually 
seen  and  heard  and  handled,  not  vague  myths  and  "  old- 
wives'  fables."  It  was  equally  vital  to  insist  upon  the 
demand  for  moral  obedience.     Talk  about  mystical  ex- 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    THEOLOGY  203 

periences,  gnosis,  insight  into  mysteries,  fellowship  with 
God  and  participation  in  His  eternal  life,  new  birth  into 
eternity  and  the  rest  of  the  current  mystical  jargon  of 
the  day,  is  all  froth  and  self-deception  unless  it  issues 
in  practical  deeds  of  unselfish  service.  "  Hereby  know 
we  love,  because  That  One  laid  down  his  life  for  us: 
and  we  ought  to  lay  down  our  lives  for  the  brethren. 
.  .  .  Little  children,  let  us  not  love  in  word,  neither 
with  the  tongTie,  but  in  deed  and  truth."  "  Abiding  in 
Him  "  means  keeping  his  commandments  of  love.  His- 
torical and  moral  realism,  that  is  the  writer's  aim. 

Thus  the  Johannine  Epistles,  with  their  direct  on- 
slaught on  the  false  religion  of  the  time,  furnish  the  true 
historical  key  to  the  Johannine  Gospel.  Two  things 
were  indispensable  if  any  headway  was  to  be  made 
against  the  docetic  tendencies  here  so  apparent:  (1)  the 
story  of  Jesus'  sacrificial  life  and  death  as  told  in  the 
Petrine-Markan  tradition,  (2)  the  exposition  of  the  new 
commandment  of  love  as  seen  in  Jesus'  teaching  as  to 
the  righteousness  of  sons  who  imitate  the  loving-kind- 
ness of  the  heavenl}'  Father  reported  in  the  Second 
Source. 

But  both  records  must  be  recast ;  for  no  single  one  of 
the  sources  represented  in  our  Synoptic  Gospels,  nor  all 
of  them  combined,  could  possibly  satisfy  the  need  of  a 
church  trained  in  the  Christology  and  soteriology  of 
Paul.  Take  up  first  the  story  of  Mark  as  modified  by 
Matthew  and  Luke.  Their  addition  of  the  Teaching 
Source  is  a  gain  of  immense  importance,  enough  in 
itself  alone  to  justify  the  appearance  of  the  two  new 
Gospels.  But  how  could  disciples  accustomed  to  think 
of  Christ  in  terms  of  the  preexistent  Spirit  of  creative 
Wisdom  be  content  with  Gospels  which  merely  correct 
the  adoptionism  of  Mark  by  combining  descent  from 
David  with  stories  of  miraculous  birth  ?  Paul's  Chris- 
tology, as  we  have  pointed  out,  is  in  its  very  essence  an 


204  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

incarnation  doctrine.  The  S.)Tioptic  Christology,  even 
as  improved  by  Luke  and  Matthew,  and  in  spite  of  its 
interpretative  vision-stories  of  the  Temptation  and 
Transfiguration,  which  throw  a  momentary  light  from 
the  unseen  world,  is  essentially  an  apotheosis  doctrine. 
To  give  the  story  the  Pauline  religious  values  it  would 
have  to  be  re-written  throughout.  It  must  be  lifted 
everywhere  to  the  supernal  realm  of  Gnostic  specula- 
tion, though  without  Gnostic  superstition.  Jesus  must 
appear  "  the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  in  bodily  form." 
And  he  must  be  so  depicted  consistently,  and  not  merely 
at  his  baptism  and  when  he  takes  the  way  of  the  cross. 
Without  relinquishing  the  realism  of  Petriue  story, 
which  would  be  to  play  into  the  hands  of  the  Docetists, 
there  must  be  such  a  restatement  of  the  gospel  record 
as  would  show  how  Jesus  came  forth  from  God  mani- 
festing the  glory  which  he  had  with  his  Father  from  the 
beginning  as  the  Firstborn  of  the  creation.  It  must 
be  shown  how  he  again  went  to  God,  not  as  defeated  by 
his  enemies  but  in  calm  and  unperturbed  majesty,  ful- 
filling the  known  purpose  of  his  Father,  drawing  hu- 
manity to  himself,  and  casting  out  the  Prince  of  this 
world.  No  disciple  of  Paul  could  be  satisfied  with  less. 
If  the  Synoptic  form  of  the  story  required  raising  to 
this  higher  level  in  its  earlier  part,  much  more  would 
restatement  be  required  in  the  later.  As  Polycarp 
shows  us,  "  resurrection  and  judgment  "  (in  the  cruder 
Jewish  sense)  were  a  stumbling-block  to  the  entire 
Greek-speaking  world.  The  apocalyptic  eschatology  of 
the  Synoptic  Gospels  is  superseded  in  the  fourth  even 
more  completely  than  in  Paul.  Instead  of  a  Doom 
chapter  on  the  fate  of  Jerusalem  and  the  approaching 
end  of  the  world,  we  have  the  discourses  of  the  upper 
room.  Here  the  Return  is  an  indwelling  of  Christ  and 
the  Father  in  the  heart  of  those  who  keep  the  new  com- 
mandment.    Judas   (not  Iscariot)    exclaims:     "Lord, 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    THEOLOGY  205 

what  is  come  to  pass  that  thou  wilt  manifest  thyself 
unto  us  and  not  unto  the  world  ?  "     But  this  is  not  a 
surprise  to  the  reader,  who  knows  from  the  conversation 
with  Xicodemus  that  the  judgment  is  already  accom- 
plished by  a  natural  gravitation  of  the  sons  of  light 
toward  the  great  Light  that  has  come  into  the  world, 
while  those  who  are  of  the  darkness  flee  from  it  to  abide 
under  condemnation  and  death.     The  history  of  this 
conception  of  the  Messiah  as  a  "  great  light  "  entering 
the  lower  world  of  darkness  and  death  to  effect  both 
judgment  and  deliverance  would  carry  us  far  back  into 
pre-Christian  interpretative  application  of  the  Isaian 
passage :     "  The  people  that  sat  in  darkness  have  seen  a 
great  light ;  unto  them  that  dwell  in  the  shadow  of  death 
hath  the  light  shined."  ^     Paul  in  Eph.  5 :  14  quotes  a 
form  of  the  prophecy  in  which  it  had  been  applied  to 
the  Messiah,  just  as  tlie  Targiim  applies  the  Song  of 
the   martyred   Servant,    as    a   "  scripture."     This   un- 
known prophecy  ran :     "  Awake,  thou  that  sleepest,  and 
arise  from  the  dead,  and  the  Christ  shall  shine  upon 
thee."     Paul   applies   it   to   the   judgment   which   the 
saints,  who  have  been  roused  from  the  darkness  and 
death  of  sin  by  the  new  light  of  Christ's  resurrection, 
must  bring  against  the  world  by  conduct  befitting  "  chil- 
dren of  the  light."     ]^o  one  who  reads  Eph.  5 :  7-14 
need  be  surprised,  then,  to  find  from  II  Tim.  2 :  18 
that  there  were  false  teachers  in  the  Pauline  churches 
who  maintained  that  the  resurrection   and  judgment 
were  past  already,  because  the  darkness  was  past  and 
the  true  light  already  shining.     Still  less  should  we  be 

2  Cf .  Bereshith  Rabba:  "When  they  who  were  bound  in  Ge- 
hinnom  saw  the  light  of  the  Messiah  they  rejoiced  in  receiving 
him,  and  said,  'This  is  he  who  will  lead  us  forth  out  of  this 
darkness';  and  Irenaeus,  'Eis  'ETr^Set^u'  tov  diro<TTo\tKov  Kripvyfiaroi, 
c.  38,  238,  V.  '  Light  entered  our  prison-house  and  brought  resur- 
rection.' Slav.  En.  xlvi.  3  adds,  '  When  God  shall  send  a  great 
light,  by  means  of  that  there  will  be  judgment  to  the  just  and 
the  unjust,  and  nothing  will  be  concealed.' " 


206  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

surprised  to  find  an  Epbesian  evangelist  toward  the  end 
of  the  centnrv  reversing  the  point  of  view  of  Revelation, 
and  presenting  as  the  teaching  of  Jesus  that  "  Now  is 
the  judgment  of  this  world,  and  the  casting  out  of  its 
Prince,"  that  for  judgment  the  Son  of  Man  came  into 
the  world,  and  that  it  is  already  convicted  and  con- 
demned by  its  attitude  both  toward  him  and  toward 
those  endowed  with  his  Spirit  (Jn.  5:22-47;  16: 
8-11),  those  who  hate  the  light  fleeing  from  it  lest  their 
deeds  be  reproved,  as  those  who  are  of  it  walk  and  live 
in  it. 

No  more  remains,  then,  in  the  Ephesian  Gospel,  of 
the  expected  great  assize  in  the  end  of  the  world  than 
the  life-giving  summons  to  the  saints  in  the  last  day 
(5:25-29).  This  complete  transfer  of  the  emphasis 
under  the  influence  of  Paul  away  from  the  expected 
judgment  of  the  apocalyptic  type  in  the  end  of  the 
world,  described  in  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  back  to  a 
judgment  already  executed  in  principle  by  the  coming 
of  Jesus  and  the  Spirit,  is  anticipated  in  Paul's  Epistles 
to  the  Romans  (Rom.  8:1)  and  to  the  Ephesians;  but 
it  necessitated  a  complete  recast  of  the  traditional  teach- 
ing. Hence  a  "  spiritual  gospel  "  to  teach  the  "  last 
things"  from  a  rationalized  point  of  view  was  needed 
just  as  urgently  as  one  to  teach  the  "  first  things  "  from 
the  view-point  of  Christ's  preexistence  as  the  creative 
and  redemptive  Wisdom  of  God.  At  least  these  two 
restatements  of  the  Church's  doctrine  in  the  domain  of 
Christology  and  esehatology  respectively  were  indis- 
pensable wherever  Paulinism  stood  confronted  by  Greek 
thought. 

Again,  no  church  which  cherished  the  finest  and  high- 
est teachings  <)f  Paul  could  possibly  be  satisfied  with 
Gospels  of  the  Synoptic  type  for  the  full  record  of  the 
doings  and  s;iyings  of  Jesus,  to  say  nothing  of  differ- 
ences between  liome  and  Asia  on  the  score  of  ritual  and 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    THEOLOGY  207 

observances.  If  the  teaching  of  Paul  survived  at  all  it 
was  inevitable  that  it  should  find  expression,  in  days 
when  Gospels  of  the  Synoptic  type  were  comino;  into 
use,  in  a  restatement  of  the  tradition  of  Jesus'  ministry 
and  teaching  in  a  form  to  bring  out  its  higher  religious 
values.  This  is  what  the  Fathers  mean  when  they  re- 
port that  when  John  saw  what  the  other  evangelists  had 
reported  of  the  bodily  things  concerning  Jesus,  he  was 
moved  to  write  a  ''  spiritual  "  Gospel.  In  his  story  of 
the  public  ministry  also,  the  fourth  evangelist  really 
does  carry  us  back  to  Mark,  and  behind  J\lark;  but  the 
supreme  Teacher  to  whom  it  harks  back  is  not  the  Jesus 
of  Peter  but  the  Christ  of  Paul. 

At  the  period  when  the  fourth  Gospel  was  written  it 
was  already  much  too  late  for  a  critical  record  of  mere 
fact  regarding  the  life  of  Jesus,  even  had  the  interest 
been  present  to  recover  it.  For  two  generations  the  use 
made  of  it  had  been  religious  and  pragmatic.  Men  had 
sought  in  it  not  fact  but  truth,  and  just  as  in  modern 
times  we  are  conscious  that  truth  may  be  conveyed  in 
many  cases  more  effectively  by  fiction  than  by  fact,  so 
with  the  ancient  world,  but  in  much  higher  degree.  As 
Plato  is  fond  of  using  myth  to  convey  a  philosophical 
truth,  so  do  the  teachers  of  the  Synagogiie  revel  in  para- 
bles and  tales  whose  end  is  edification,  and  whose  value 
is  reckoned  according  to  the  attainment,  or  failure  to 
attain,  this  end.  The  rule  of  haggada  is  Paul's  nile: 
"  All  things  for  edification."  As  we  have  already  seen, 
there  is  decisive  evidence  for  the  employment  of  just 
such  interpretative  haggada,  or  midrash,  in  the  early 
Christian  Church,  long  after  the  period  of  our  Gospels, 
in  the  tradition  of  the  sayings  and  doings  of  Jesus.  In 
fact  our  owTi  Gospel  of  Mark  was  seen  to  employ  for  its 
key-narratives  accompanying  the  story  of  Jesus'  bap- 
tism, and  of  his  taking  the  way  of  the  cross,  two  vision 
stories  of  precisely  this  midrash ic  character.     The  task 


208  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

of  the  fourth  evangelist  in  relating  the  ministry  was 
essentially  the  same  as  that  which  had  been  imperfectly 
fulfilled  in  the  Koman  Gospel  by  the  incorporation  of 
these  two  midrashoth.  I^ot  the  mere  beginnings  of  the 
two  periods  of  Jesus'  career  must  be  glorified  in  the 
light  of  the  supernal  world,  but  the  ministry  in  its  en- 
tirety. From  start  to  finish  it  would  have  to  be  so 
narrated  as  to  exhibit  its  relation  to  things  eternal,  ac- 
cording to  the  Christology  of  Paul.  At  the  same  time 
it  must  retain  the  strong  note  of  human  reality  which 
gave  to  the  Petrine  record  cherished  by  the  Church  its 
immeasurable  superiority  to  the  grotesque  fables  of  the 
Docetists,  such  as  we  meet  in  the  docetic  Acts  of  John. 
For  this  purpose  the  fourth  evangelist  wisely  follows 
the  example  of  Mark  in  prefixing  a  prologue  ( Jn.  1 : 
1-18)  which  apprises  the  reader  in  quasi-philosophical 
terms  of  the  inner  significance  of  the  narrative  which  is 
to  follow.  Also  in  the  body  of  the  work  he  limits  him- 
self to  a  selection  of  illustrative  discourses  and  mighty 
works  (in  this  Gospel  designated  "  signs")  applied  ex- 
plicitly to  the  single  purpose  of  eliciting  the  belief  that 
Jesus  was  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  a  faith  which 
issues  in  eternal  life  (20:  30-31). 

Men  of  far  greater  knowledge  than  mine  of  the  ex- 
tent to  which  Jewish  teaching  for  edification  could  re- 
sort to  fiction  even  when  fact  might  have  been  available 
have  expressed  their  readiness  to  regard  this  writing  as 
the  work  of  the  Apostle  John.  Such  is  in  fact  the  late 
second-century  tradition,  which  maintains  that  this 
highly  idealized  representation  of  the  story  and  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  was  the  work  of  an  eye-witness,  yes,  the 
closest  and  most  intimate  of  all  the  eye-witnesses, 
though  only  after  he  had  become  thoroughly  indoc- 
trinated wnth  the  ideas  of  Paul.  This  was  the  view  of 
that  superb  scholar  and  profoundly  Christian  spirit,  so 
lately  the  ornament  of  this  college  and  university,  Prin- 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    THEOLOGY  209 

cipal  Drummond,  who  certainly  approached  the  ques- 
tion of  Johannine  authorship  with  unusual  freedom 
from  bias,  however  possibly  disposed  in  much  later 
years  to  stand  by  a  conclusion  once  logically  reached, 
even  against  an  altered  phase  of  the  argument.  It  may 
be  that  Principal  Drummond's  exceptional  and  sympa- 
thetic appreciation  of  Philo,  the  Jewish  mystic  and 
Gnostic,  made  it  possible  for  him  to  maintain  the  view 
which  he  adopted.  This  view,  however,  requires  us  to 
hold  that  one  who  knew  the  actual  facts  of  Jesus'  min- 
istry in  Jerusalem  as  an  eye-witness,  one  who  alone 
of  all  men  alive  could  tell  the  real  story  of  the  Master's 
tragic  end,  deliberately  consigned  to  oblivion  the  facts 
for  which  the  Christian  world  was  thirsting,  and  con- 
cocted a  fiction  to  take  their  place.  For  "  fiction  "  is 
the  word  applied  by  Principal  Drummond  himself  to 
the  story  of  the  raising  of  Lazarus  from  the  dead ;  and 
it  is  this  event  which  in  the  Ephesian  Gospel  takes  the 
place  of  the  Purging  of  the  Temple  as  the  occasion  of 
Jesus'  martyrdom. 

Fortunately  the  evidence  for  Johannine  authorship 
is  not  really  so  strong  as  to  require  this  feat  of  imagi- 
nation. The  fourth  evangelist  does  not  pretend  to  be 
an  eye-witness,  nor  does  he  intentionally  substitute  fic- 
tion for  fact.  He  merely  uses  such  material  as  was  cur- 
rently employed  for  similar  purposes  in  his  time,  mak- 
ing no  more  enquiry  as  to  its  historical  reliability  than 
was  customary  under  the  prevailing  rule:  "Let  all 
things  be  done  unto  edification."  The  Ephesian  evan- 
gelist tells  the  story  as  it  had  been  told  to  him.  He 
makes  no  more  use  of  "  fiction  "  than  that  free  employ- 
ment of  edifying  story  which  in  that  age  was  accorded 
by  common  consent  to  every  synagogue  teacher.  The 
insoluble  difiiculties  arise  only  when  we  think  of  him 
as  the  Apostle  and  eye-witness  which  he  never  professed 
to  be.     We  should  conceive  instead  the  preacher  and  in- 


210  JESUS    AND    PADI. 

terpreter  of  a  Paiiliuized  t.vpe  of  Christianity  who  used 
the  recognized  methods  of  his  age  against  the  false  teach- 
ers he  himself  denounces.  Next  to  ridding  ourselves  of 
this  traditional  prepossession,  and  placing  ourselves  at 
the  evangelist's  own  point  of  view,  face  to  face  with  his 
OAvn  environment,  by  means  of  tlie  three  Epistles,  the 
most  important  step  toward  real  appreciation  of  the 
fourth  Gospel  is  to  avail  ourselves  of  the  theological 
key  which  the  evangelist  himself  supplies  in  the  Pro- 
logue. 

2.  The  Prologue 

The  very  able  and  acute  Swiss  critic  Overbeck  pointed 
to  the  story  in  Acts  18,  of  a  community  of  pre-Pauline 
disciples  at  Ephesus  (of  which  the  learned  Alexandrian 
Jew  Apollos  had  been  a  member  until  won  over  to 
Paulinism  by  Priscilla  and  Aquila)  as  ottering  the  ex- 
planation why  this  Ephesian  Gospel,  so  deeply  tinged 
with  Alexandrian-Jewish  ideas,  should  have  been  at- 
tributed to  "  John."  For  the  first  Ephesian  community 
was  "  Johannine."  They  were  disciples  of  the  Baptist. 
Luke  speaks  of  them,  to  be  sure,  as  ''  disciples,"  and  of 
Apollos,  their  leader,  as  "  instructed  in  the  way  of  the 
Lord."  lie  even  declares  that  Apollos  "  s})oke  and 
taught  carefully  the  things  concerning  .lesus,''  though 
the  whole  group  knew  of  no  other  baptism  than  that  of 
John.  By  this  use  of  language  Luke  becomes  in  s*)me 
degree  responsible  for  a  very  startling  theory  pro- 
pounded by  a  fellow-countryman  of  mine,  Professor 
Wm.  Benjamin  Smith,  formerly  of  the  chair  of  Mathe- 
matics, now  of  Philosophy  in  Tulane  University,  La. 
In  this  respect  Professor  Smith  resembles  Sir  Isaac 
Newton,  that  his  mathematics  are  much  better  than  his 
interpretation  of  Scripture.  Professor  Smith  infers 
from  this  passage  that  the  Apollos  group  were  worship- 
ing a  "  pre-Christian  Jesus."     In  reality  all  that  Luke 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    THEOLOGY  211 

means  by  the  Way  of  tiie  Lord  as  taught  by  the  Ephesian 
Baptists  can  be  seen  by  Lk.  3 :  18,  where  the  evangelist 
speaks  of  the  Baptist  himself  as  "  preaching  the  Gos- 
pel." For  Lnke  the  Baptist  himself  was  a  preacher  of 
Christianity,  minus  the  doctrine  of  the  Spirit ;  hence  a 
Baptist  community  in  Ephesns  wonld  be  (to  his  mind) 
"  disciples."  Having  heard  the  "  preaching  of  the  Gos- 
pel "  from  the  Baptist  they  Avould  know  "  the  way  of 
the  Lord,"  and  even  "  the  things  concerning  Jesns  " ; 
though  to  become  complete  Christians  they  would  re- 
quire to  receive  (alter  further  catechizing)  the  baptism 
of  the  Spirit  and  its  accompanying  gifts.  The  "  pre- 
Christian  Jesus  "  is  a  modern  myth,  destitute  of  other 
foundation  than  this  misunderstanding  of  Luke.  How- 
ever, there  ivere  Johanniue  Baptists  in  Ephesus  before 
Paul's  coming,  and  they  doubtless  knew  more  or  less 
about  Jesus.  Under  the  leadership  of  Apollos  they  had 
probably  given  a  more  or  less  Alexandrian  cast  to  the 
Baptist's  teaching  of  whose  discrimination  we  have  some 
traces  in  other  localities  also.^ 

Overbeck's  suggestion  is  hardly  necessary  to  account 
for  the  attachment  of  the  name  of  "  John "  to  the 
Ephesian  Gospel,  because  after  Revelation  had  been  ac- 
cepted as  authentic  by  men  such  as  Papias  and  Justin 
it  was  practically  certain  that  the  same  Apostle's  name 
would  be  attached  to  the  rest  of  the  Ephesian  canon 
anyway.*  But  the  pre-Pauline  brotherhood  of  John  at 
Ephesus  whose  leader  was  Apollos  is  an  important  fac- 
tor in  the  history  of  this  Ionian  center  of  Hellenistic 
theosophy  which  was  the  birth-place  of  the  fourth  Gos- 

3  Dositheus,  the  predecessor  of  Simon  Magus  in  Samaria,  is 
said  in  the  Clementine  Homilies  to  have  been  a  disciple  of  the 
Baptist.  The  ]\Iandii'an  sect  on  the  Persian  Gulf  are  Gnostics 
who  trace  their  origin  to  the  Baptist. 

4  The  existence  of  this  community  of  "  disciples  of  John  "  may 
very  well  account  for  the  existence  of  two  rpoiraia  of  John  in 
Ephesus,  as  alleged  by  Dionysius  of  Alexandra  in  his  attempt  to 
discover  evidences  of  a  non-apostolic  John  having  resided  there. 


212  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

pel.  We  can  no  more  afford  to  neglect  it  than  we  can 
venture  to  neglect  the  post-Pauline  advent  to  this  and 
the  sister  churches  of  the  Lycus  valley  of  a  contingent 
of  utterly  different  type  in  the  person  of  the  Evangelist 
Philip  of  Caesarea  and  his  four  prophesying  daughters. 
If  it  be  reasonable  to  connect  the  latter  factor  with  the 
Johannine  "  Revelation,"  it  is  no  less  so  to  connect  the 
former  with  the  fourth  Gospel.  In  observing  the  char- 
acter of  the  Ephesian  Gospel  we  cannot  but  recall  how 
Paul  had  written  to  the  Corinthians  from  Ephesus  com- 
mending Apollos,  and  that  he  adds  the  assurance  that 
he  (Paul),  too,  could,  had  he  chosen,  have  preached  the 
gospel  in  terms  of  mystical  gnosis.  ApoUos'  devotion 
to  this  type  of  "  wisdom  "  will  have  been  of  earlier  date 
than  his  conversion  by  Aquila  and  Prisca,  and  may 
well  have  characterized  the  "  Johannine "  group  of 
which  he  seems  to  have  been  the  leader.  While,  then, 
the  name  of  "  John  "  is  hardly  likely  to  have  become 
attached  for  this  reason  to  the  fourth  Gospel,  it  is  by 
no  means  without  significance  that  even  before  the  ad- 
vent of  Paul,  Ephesus  had  been  the  seat  of  an  Alex- 
andrian sect  which  Luke  could  regard  as  quasi-Chris- 
tian, though  in  reality  followers  of  the  Baptist,  whose 
"  gospel  "  they  had  doubtless  developed  in  their  own 
characteristic  way.  If  we  knew  more  of  the  Second 
Source,  inferences  would  be  less  precarious.  As  it  is, 
we  may  venture  to  recall  that  we  found  the  Christology 
of  the  kSecond  Source  to  be  distinctively  a  "  Wisdom  " 
Christology  (or  in  other  words,  Alexandrian),  and 
moreover  that  in  this  source  the  prominence  given  to 
John  the  Baptist  is  vastly  greater  than  in  Mark.  On 
the  other  hand  a  curious  polemic  against  an  exaggerated 
esteem  for  the  Baptist  has  been  recognized  for  nearly  a 
century  aiid  a  half  ''  as  a  characteristic  feature  of  the 

r>  Sec  Baldenepergcr,  Der  Prolog  des  vierien  EvangeHum's  1898. 
Micliaelis  liad  already  made  some  observations  in  tliis  line. 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    THEOLOGY  213 

Ephesian  Gospel.  In  fact  Wellhansen  lias  o;ood  reason 
for  his  denial  of  tlio  relevancy  of  the  interjected  re 
marks  about  John  the  Baptist  in  the  Prologue  (1 :  (5-8, 
15).  The  first  parenthetic  remark  (verses  6-8)  warns 
the  reader  not  to  suppose  that  John  was  the  eternal 
Logos,  the  creative  life  which  was  the  light  of  men ;  the 
second  (verse  15)  interposes  a  reference  to  a  witness 
of  John  of  which  the  reader  is  not  informed,  that  Jesus 
was  greater  than  he  in  spite  of  coming  after  him.  It  is 
inserted  between  the  words  "  the  Logos  became  flesh  and 
dwelt  among  us,  full  of  grace  and  truth  "  and  their 
sequel  "  For  of  his  fullness  we  all  received,  and  grace 
for  grace,"  thus  breaking  the  connection.  It  is  hard 
to  believe  that  the  original  form  of  the  Prologue  con- 
tained these  two  asides  about  the  claims  made  for  the 
Baptist. 

If  we  simply  pass  over  these  intrusive  remarks  about 
John  the  Baptist,  the  Prologue  (which  nominally  iden- 
tifies Jesus  with  the  incarnate  Logos,  the  Stoic  princi- 
ple of  cosmic  order  and  intelligibility)  will  be  seen  to 
be  a  typical  Wisdom  Christology  of  the  purest  Alex- 
andrian type.  One  need  only  compare  the  close  paral- 
lels adduced  by  Professor  Reudel  Harris  in  his  recent 
little  book.  Origin  of  ihe  Prologue  to  St.  John's  Gospel 
(1917),  which  are  only  part  of  what  could  be  adduced, 
to  see  that  the  term  "  Logos  "  is  a  mere  accommodation. 
The  writer  is  as  genuine  a  Jew  as  Philo  himself,  and 
has  taken  on  far  less  than  Philo  of  Hellenistic  color. 
In  fact,  while  John's  Prologue  is  at  least  as  much  in 
line  as  Mark's  with  the  Gospel  it  introduces,  and  forms 
a  true  key  to  its  meaning,  the  word  "  Logos  "  never  re- 
appears in  its  technical  sense  except  in  the  preamble 
to  the  first  Epistle.  Let  me  repeat  that  this  is  not  the 
J/emra-Logos  of  Wisdom  18:  15  and  Rev.  19:  13,  the 
Destroyer-Logos  of  Babylonian  literature  described  by 
Professor  S.  Langdon,  but  the  Hoqmali-luogos  of  Philo 


214  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

and  the  Wisdom  writers,  the  divine  spirit  of  creation, 
revelation  and  redemption.  The  Prologue,  then,  sim- 
ply applies  the  Christology  of  Paul  as  the  key  to  the 
story  of  Jesus  in  the  way  that  we  might  expect  an 
Apollos,  or  men  of  the  school  of  Apollos,  to  do  it.  No 
longer  is  it  put,  as  in  Mark,  in  the  form  of  midrash, 
or  symbolic  vision-story,  but  in  the  habitual  foi*ms  of 
Jewish  philosophy.  As  Canon  Sanday  has  said : 
"  Harnack  says  that  the  Philonean  Logos  and  the  Johan- 
nean  have  nothing  in  common  but  the  name.  We  may 
go  a  step  further  and  add  that  St.  Paul's  doctrine  and 
St.  John's  have  everything  in  common  but  the  name.  "  ^ 
The  same  might  be  said  of  the  later  Jewish  doctrine  of 
redemptive  Wisdom.  As  we  have  seen,  the  name  Logos 
is  mere  accommodation.  All  the  Wisdom  writers  from 
Ben-Sirach  to  Baiiich  would  simply  have  used  "  Wis- 
dom." If  our  evangelist  in  this  respect  follows  the 
example  of  Philo  rather  than  Philo's  Jewish  predeces- 
sors it  is  merely  on  the  surface.  His  meaning  does  not 
diifer  from  the  Wisdom  writers,  nor  from  Paul.  In- 
deed he  merely  borrows  Philo's  term  "  the  Logos  "  to 
paraphrase  the  same  Pauline  passage  (Col.  1:15-17) 
which  the  writer  of  Mark's  prologue  had  partially  repro- 
duced in  the  language  of  Palestinian  midrash.  Per- 
haps we  can  form  our  own  conception  of  how  the  person 
and  work  of  Jesus  were  understood  at  the  beginning  of 
the  second  century  in  cultured  Pauline  circles  in  no 
better  way  than  by  paraphrasing  the  Prologue,  a  sub- 
lime II_)ann  of  Incarnate  Wisdom,  whose  two  strophes 
of  three  utterances  followed  by  one  of  four  constitutes 
a  kind  of  Christian  Decalogue. 

Strophe  I  describes  the  nature  of  what  Paul  calls 
"  the  mind  (vov?)  of  Christ  "  as  preexistent  with  God. 
The  Logos  is  divine,  God's  agent  in  creation  and  in 

6  Expositor  (1892),  p.  28'7.     Cf.  Harnack,  Dogmengesch.,^  p.  85, 
and  contrast  Sabaticr,  Ht.  Paul. 


THE   GOSPEL    AS    THEOLOGY  216 

revelation;  for  it  is  ever  distinguishing  truth  from 
error.  A  stoic  would  define  it  perhaps  in  three-fold 
form    as    Aoyos    evSta^tros^     Aoyos    7rpo</>opiK09^     and    Aoyo? 

SiaKpiTLKos.  Paul's  parallel  statement  is :  "  We  have 
our  redemption  in  the  Son  of  God's  love,  who  is  the 
Image  (eiKwv)  of  the  invisible  God,  the  Firstborn  of 
the  whole  creation,  because  all  things  in  heaven  and  on 
earth  were  created  in  him,  through  him,  and  unto  him. 
And  he  is  before  all  things  and  in  him  all  things  con- 
sist, because  the  divine  '  Good  Pleasure  '  (euSoKta)  was 
that  the  whole  '  Fullness  of  the  divine  attributes ' 
(^Tr\r]pwfjLa)  should  take  up  its  abode  in  him."  The  Pro- 
logue of  Mark  had  put  this  in  the  midrashic  form  of 
vision-story  and  a  Voice  from  Heaven.  The  Prologue 
of  John  puts  it  in  three  epigrammatic  utterances  which 
we  may  paraphrase  as  follows  ( Jn.  1 :  1-5)  : 

(1)  In  the  beginning,  dwelling  with  God  and  par- 
taking of  the  nature  of  God,  was  the  Spirit  of  creative 
and  redemptive  Wisdom. 

(2)  It  dwelt  with  God  in  the  beginning;  it  was  His 
agent  in  creation:  there  is  nothing  that  exists  apart 
from  it. 

(3)  Whatever  has  life  derives  it  from  this  source, 
and  what  men  are  guided  by  as  light  (inward  and  out- 
ward) is  nothing  else  but  this  divine  agency  that  also 
appears  as  life;  its  function  in  the  world  is  discrimi- 
native, perpetually  in  victorious  war  with  darkness. 

(Here  at  the  end  of  Strophe  I  is  appended  the  digTCs- 
sion  of  verses  6-8,  to  warn  the  reader  not  to  confuse 
John  the  Baptist  with  this  Light,  to  which  he  merely 
bore  witness.) 

Strophe  II,  which  also  has  three  utterances,  speaks 
of  this  redemptive  Spirit  of  God  as  the  revealer  of  truth 
to  all  past  ages  of  mankind,  but  with  the  tragic  fate 
of  rejection  by  all  save  Wisdom's  children,  the  classic 
theme  of  all  the  Wisdom  lyrics  (w.  9-13), 


216  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

(1)  This  tnie  light,  that  illuminates  every  humaxi 
being,  was  unceasingly  coming  into  the  world ;  it  was 
in  the  world ;  the  world  came  into  being  through  it ;  and 
yet  the  world  refused  it  recognition. 

(2)  It  came  to  its  own  things  (to,  tSta),  but  even  its 
own  people  (ol  tSiot)  did  not  receive  it.  Nevertheless  on 
as  many  as  did  give  it  welcome  it  bestowed  the  right  to 
be  children  of  God. 

(3)  These  are  they  who  believe  on  His  name;  for 
such  are  not  born  of  blood,  nor  of  hmnan  choice  or  de- 
sire, but  are  begotten  of  God. 

Strophe  III  makes  up  the  total  of  ten  with  four 
utterances  dealing  with  the  incarnation  of  this  divine 
Spirit,  which  in  Ben-Sirach  and  Baruch  "  tabernacles  " 
with  Israel  in  the  pillar  of  fire  and  cloud.  It  journeys 
in  their  midst  to  rest  ultimately  over  the  sanctuary, 
making  its  abode  in  Israel  and  its  leaders,  an  incarna- 
tion for  the  salvation  of  the  world.  The  Prologue 
adopts  this  classic  figiire  of  the  Wisdom  lyrics,  passing 
from  it  to  a  comparison  like  Paul's  in  II  Cor.  3-6  of 
the  revelation  of  the  Law  to  Moses  with  the  revelation 
of  grace  and  immortality  in  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ. 
I  will  omit  the  irrelevant  interruption  in  v.  15  and 
paraphrase  verses  14-18 : 

(1)  And  the  Wisdom  of  God  became  flesh  and 
"  tabernacled  "  among  us,  and  we  beheld  its  glory,  glory 
as  of  an  "  only-begotten "  from  the  Father,  full  of 
grace  and  truth. 

(2)  For  of   its   "  fullness  "    (Ik   tov   TrAr^pwyaaro?  avTOv) 

we  all  received,  one  charism  upon  another. 

(3)  For  the  Law  was  given  through  Moses,  but  grace 
and  fulfillment  of  the  promise  came  through  Jesus 
Christ. 

(4)  No  man  (not  even  Moses)  ever  beheld  God. 
The  only-begotten  Son  who  is  in  the  bosom  of  the  Fa- 
ther, he  has  made  Him  manifest. 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    THEOLOGY  217 


3.  General  Structure  of  the  Gospel 

Besides  the  use  of  a  'Prologue  the  Ephesian  Gospel 
also  follows  the  example  of  Mark  in  dividinc;  the  story 
of  the  miuistry  into  two  main  sections,  a  Galilean  min- 
istry, covering  the  first  six  chapters,  and  a  Judean  min- 
istry covering  the  last  fourteen;  hut  since  another  line 
is  drawn  in  a  very  marked  way  at  the  end  of  chapter  12, 
separating  the  public  ministry  from  the  discourses  of 
the  upper  room  and  the  Passion  story  in  the  last  eight 
chapters  (13-20),  we  ought  perhaps  to  speak  rather  of 
a  three-fold  division  into  nearly  equal  parts,  chapters 
1-6,  7-12,  and  13-20. 

We  have  thus  in  the  section  on  the  public  ministry,  a 
general  correspondence  with  the  Markan  outline ;  but  it 
is  considerably  obscured  by  a  secondary  scheme  based 
upon  the  idea  that  Jesus  attended  the  great  religious 
feasts  of  Judaism  at  Jerusalem.  Each  occasion  of  the 
kind  is  then  used  by  the  evangelist  to  bring  out  their 
higher  significance  by  word  and  miracle.  Thus,  while 
Jesus  still  makes  the  beginning  of  his  ministry  in  Gali- 
lee, as  soon  as  Passover  arrives  he  goes  up  to  Jerusa- 
lem, purifying  the  temple  as  in  the  Passion  story  of 
Mark,  but  at  the  same  time  predicting  its  superseding 
by  his  own  death  and  resurrection.  This  public  declara- 
tion of  his  Messiahship  to  all  Israel  at  the  seat  of  wor- 
ship is  followed  by  a  dialogue  with  one  of  the  teachers 
of  Israel  interpreting  the  doctrines  of  new  birth  and 
justification  by  faith  taken  in  the  Pauline  sense.  Jesus 
then  returns  to  Galilee  by  way  of  Samaria,  where  a  dia- 
logue of  similar  character  with  a  Samaritan  woman 
serves  to  present  the  doctrine  expressed  by  Paul  in 
Ephesians  as  "  access  for  Jew  and  Gentile  in  one  Spirit 
unto  a  common  Father."  Thus  the  temple  and  its 
worship  sink  out  of  sight  behind  the  new  order.  The 
story  of  the  Galilean  ministry  is  resumed  in  the  healing 


218  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

of  the  N^obleman's  Son  in  Capernaum  and  the  Miracles 
of  the  Loaves  and  Walking  on  the  Sea,  But  between 
the  two  is  interjected  another  "  feast  of  the  Jews,"  prob- 
ably Pentecost,  with  a  miracle  and  dialogue  at  Jeriisa- 
lem  corresponding  in  character  with  the  section  of 
Mark  (2:  1-3:  6),  in  which  Jesus  proves  his  authority 
over  the  Law  of  Moses  and  his  right  as  Son  of  Man  to 
forgive  sins.  From  this  scene  in  Jerusalem  we  pass 
abruptly  to  "  the  other  side  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee  "  and 
the  Galilean  ministry  closes,  as  in  Mark,  with  the  Feed- 
ing of  the  Multitude  and  an  appropriate  discourse  on 
the  Bread  of  Life  interpreting  the  sacrament  of  the 
Supper.  This  takes  place  at  a  second  Passover,  the 
Feast  of  Unleavened  Bread,  but  this  time  Jesus  remains 
in  Galilee,  because  in  Judea  "  the  Jews  sought  to  kill 
him." 

The  Jerusalem  ministry,  so  far  as  public,  consists 
of  two  visits,  at  Tabernacles  and  Dedication  respec- 
tively. The  former  feast,  in  connection  with  its  cere- 
monial of  water-drawing  and  illumination,  gives  oppor- 
tunity for  Jesus  to  offer  himself  as  Giver  of  rivers  of 
living  water,  and  (after  healing  a  man  blind  from 
birth)  as  Light  of  the  world.  The  second,  the  Feast 
of  "  Renewal "  (Hanuka),  which  commemorated  the 
martyrdom  and  resurrection  of  those  who  had  given 
their  lives  for  the  national  hope,  is  the  occasion  for 
Jesus'  raising  Lazarus  from  the  dead,  and  proclaiming 
himself  the  resurrection  and  the  life.  Chapter  12,  in 
which  we  are  told  of  the  Triumphal  Entry  and  the 
Appeal  of  the  Greeks,  brings  the  story  of  the  public 
ministry  to  a  formal  close.  After  this  Jesus  again 
withdraws,  to  return  only  at  the  final  Passover. 

The  end  of  Chapter  1 2  marks  a  major  division  of  the 
Gospel.  The  third  and  closing  Passover  which  it  de- 
scribes has  no  public  teaching.  Jesus  merely  gives  his 
parting  instructions  to  the  Twelve  and  is  glorified  by 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    THEOLOGY  219 

the  cross  and  resurrection.  The  sacramental.  Supper 
also  plays  no  part  here,  all  its  teaching  having  been  an- 
ticipated in  the  discourse  in  Capernaum,  and  Jesus'  own 
death  taking  place  at  the  time  when  according  to  Syn- 
optic story  it  was  instituted. 

We  see  that  the  Johannine  scheme  of  the  feasts 
sr^atlv  interferes  with  the  ]\Iarkan  outline.  It  even 
appears  to  have  so  dislocated  the  material  in  the  attempt 
to  adjust  the  one  to  the  other  as  to  bring  about  several 
instances  of  disorder.  Thus  in  6:1,  we  pass  from 
Jerusalem  at  "  the  "  feast  of  5 :  1,  whose  name  has  dis- 
appeared but  which  the  narrative  indicates  was  Pente- 
cost (feast  of  the  giving  of  the  Law),  to  "  the  other  side 
of  the  Sea  of  Galilee."  Conversely  in  7 :  1  we  are  told 
that  "  After  these  things  Jesus  walked  in  Galilee " ; 
whereas  he  is  in  Galilee,  and  the  next  thing  related  is 
his  going  to  Jerusalem.  Moreover  the  theme  of  dis- 
course in  chapter  5  is  carried  on  much  too  continuously 
in  7 :  14—24  to  admit  the  supposition  that  more  than 
half  a  year  has  intervened.  Apparently  chapters  5 
and  6  have  been  inverted  in  order,  as  many  critics  and 
interpreters  have  independently  conjectured. 

Various  theories,  too  intricate  for  our  consideration 
here,  have  been  advanced  to  explain  this  and  other 
displacements.  Suffice  it  for  the  present  that  the  evan- 
gelist has  certainly  made  historical  considerations  en- 
tirely secondary  to  those  of  religious  instruction  and 
apologetic.  He  himself  informs  us  that  the  material 
he  has  put  together  is  a  mere  selection,  and  that  the 
object  was  faith  in  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God  to  the  ob- 
taining of  eternal  life.  The  fact  that  the  entire  public 
ministry  is  presented  in  the  form  of  scenes  at  five  great 
religious  feasts,  Passover,  Pentecost,  Unleavened  Bread, 
Tabernacles  and  Dedication,  for  all  but  one  of  which 
Jesus  goes  up  to  Jerusalem,  reminds  us  of  the  five  dis- 
courses of  Matthew,    and   shows   how   artistically   the 


220  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

evangelist  arranges  his  material.  For  on  each  occasion 
he  describes  a  single  mighty  work  of  Jesus  symbolical 
of  the  religious  significance  of  the  feast  in  question ;  and 
this  is  accompanied  by  a  discourse  approximating  in 
form  the  Platonic  dialogue,  a  form  which  had  become 
classic  for  religious  and  philosophic  teaching.  These 
discourses  are  not  concerned  with  the  exhortation  to 
repentance  in  view  of  the  coming  kingdom,  as  in  Syn- 
optic story.  In  fact  the  Johannine  Christ  is  not  a 
teacher  of  ethics,  new  or  old.  There  are  no  publicans 
and  sinners  in  the  fourth  Gospel.  There  are  only  on 
the  one  hand  believers,  on  the  other  "  the  Jews,"  who 
are  Jesus'  opponents.  The  discourses  are  theological 
and  polemic.  They  start  from  one  of  the  so-called 
"  seven  I  am's  "  of  Jesus,  and  expound  in  religious  dia- 
lectic the  significance  of  his  person  and  mission.  At 
the  initial  Passover  Jesus  purges  the  temple,  announc- 
ing himself  as  taking  its  place  through  his  death  and 
resurrection.  The  dialogue  with  Nicodemus  follows, 
explaining  the  doctrines  of  new  birth  by  baptism  of 
the  Spirit,  and  justification  in  the  judginent  by  faith  in 
the  crucified  Son  of  Man.  Nicodemus  disappears. 
The  dialogue  becomes  a  monologue,  and  is  followed  by 
a  (displaced'^)  paragraph  making  clear  the  fact  that 
the  baptism  of  John  was  not  "  from  heaven  "  in  any 
such  sense  as  that  of  Jesus'  disciples.  The  Christian 
alone  has  the  divine  endorsement  of  the  Spirit  (3 : 
22-26).  A  second  dialogue,  whose  scene  is  Jacob's 
well,  on  the  return  journey  through  Samaria,  shows 
how  this  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  supersedes  all  local 
shrines,  giving  common  access  to  all  of  every  race  who 
worship  in  spirit  and  truth  to  the  heavenly  Father.  A 
parallel  to  the  Synoptic  anecdote  of  the  Believing  Cen- 
turion "^  closes  this  first  section  of  the  work. 

7  The  Pauline  conception  of  the  cross   (not  mere  Gentile  faith) 
as  the  breaking  down  of  the  middle  wall  of  partition  (Eph.  2:  14- 


THE    GOSPEL    AS    THEOLOGY  221 

We  need  not  now  take  up  consecutively  the  miracles 
and  discourses  of  the  successive  feasts,  which  for  the 
present  I  will  merely  enumerate.  Those  of  chapter  5, 
in  which  the  authority  of  Jesus  is  set  over  against  that 
of  Moses,  relate  to  Pentecost.  Chapter  6  relates  to  the 
Passover  in  Galilee,  with  its  miracle  of  the  loaves  and 
dialogue  on  the  Bread  from  Heaven.  Chapters  7-9 
describe  Tabernacles  in  Jerusalem  with  its  miracle  of 
healing  of  the  man  born  blind  and  dialogue  on  Jesus 
as  the  "  Light  of  the  World."  Chapters  10-12  describe 
the  culmination  of  the  ministry  at  the  feast  of  Dedi- 
cation. Its  miracle  is  the  raising  of  Lazarus,  and  its 
closing  discourse  is  on  Jesus'  self -dedication  to  the  cross 
that  he  may  "  draw  all  men  unto  him." 

From  this  mere  enumeration  it  will  be  already  clear 
that  the  evangelist's  aim  is  not  statistical  but  interpre- 
tative. He  is  no  mere  annalist.  He  has  combined  say- 
ings and  doings  in  his  scheme  of  the  five  feasts  in  a 
way  somewhat  suggestive  of  the  five  books  of  the  Pales- 
tinian evangelist.  Unlike  Matthew,  however,  he  con- 
ceives the  teaching  not  as  law,  but  as  gospel.  It  brings 
life  and  immortality  to  light  as  a  present  possession. 
The  writer  uses  narrative  and  discourse  in  something 
like  the  proportion,  and  with  something  like  the  method 
of  the  Second  Source;  for  the  Second  Source  should 
not  be  regarded  as  a  loose  string  of  precepts,  but  as  a 
series  of  discourses  with  brief  connecting  narrative,  like 
the  Petrine  discourses  of  Acts.  But  no  discriminating 
reader  can  imagine  that  the  fourth  evangelist  attempts 
to  reproduce  the  historical  utterances  of  Jesus.  They 
are  as  freely  adapted  as  those  of  Socrates  in  the  dia- 
logues of  Plato,  or  the  discourses  of  Peter  just  referred 
to.  All  the  characters  alike,  whether  John,  or  Nico- 
demus,  or  the  Samaritan  woman,  or  Jesus  himself,  de- 

16;    cf.    Jno.    12:20-33)     precludes    the    fourth   evangelist    from 
characterizing  the  "  nobleman  "  as  a  Gentile. 


222  JESUS    AND    PAUT. 

bate  such  subjects  as  might  have  been  in  dispute  in  the 
schools  of  Ephesus,  when  Paul  disputed  daily  in  the 
school  of  Tyranuus.  They  use  the  language  and  teiTai- 
nolog}^  of  such  debate.  All  the  characters  speak  just  as 
the  evangelist  himself  speaks  in  the  three  Epistles,  and 
his  style  and  language  have  an  oracular  tone  which  is 
highly  characteristic.  All  the  utterances  are  "  as  it 
were  oracles  of  God," 

It  nmst  be  admitted  that  the  nature  of  this  Gospel's 
contribution  to  its  own  age  and  to  ours  is  different  from 
that  which  it  has  often  been  supposed  to  render.  It  was 
not  written  for  historical  critics,  but  for  disciples  who 
needed  a  higher  interpretation  of  the  divine  revelation 
in  the  coming  of  Christ.  What  the  author  aimed  at  he 
has  accomplished.  He  seeks  to  convey  truth,  and  not 
mere  fact.  He  seeks  to  reveal  the  heart  of  Christ,  not 
to  describe  his  outward  appearance.  He  wishes  to  tell 
what  Christ  eternally  is  to  the  soul  self-dedicated  to 
him,  not  what  he  was  to  past  obsei^ers  that  had  neither 
eye  nor  ear  for  the  things  of  the  spirit.  "  These  things 
were  written  that  men  might  believe  that  Jesus  is  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  and  that  in  this  faith  they  might 
find  life,"  as  the  writer  had  found  it. 

The  Christ  of  the  fourth  evangelist  is  truly  man, 
truly  the  historical  Jesus,  depicted  as  faithfully  as  the 
evangelist's  information  permits.  Doubtless  narrative 
as  well  as  discourse  is  freely  adapted ;  but  we  do  him 
great  injustice  if  we  treat  as  insincere  his  insistence  on 
the  reality  of  Jesus'  flesh,  its  tangible  and  corporeal 
nature,  manifest  to  the  historical  sense,  a  witness  borne 
to  eye  and  ear-witnesses,  and  cherished  in  the  Church 
as  its  choicest  possession.  To  him  <m  the  contrary  the 
attempt  of  docetic  heresy  to  vaporize  this  all  away  was 
the  chief  danger  of  the  Church.  To  his  view  this  was 
the  false  and  deceitful  s])irit  of  Antichrist  foretold  for 
tlie  last  times.     Ilis  Christ  is  as  real  and  historic  as  he 


THE    GOSPEL,    AS    THEOLOGY  223 

is  able  to  depict  him.  But  he  is  also  the  incarnate 
Spirit  of  the  redeeming  Wisdom  of  God,  the  revealing 
"  Image  of  the  invisible  God,"  as  he  had  been  to  Paul ; 
and  the  evangelist  is  no  more  satisfied  than  Paul  would 
have  been  with  the  depiction  of  a  Christ  after  the  flesh. 
He  retains  what  he  regards  as  of  value  in  Synoptic 
story,  but  with  something  like  the  sovereign  freedom  of 
the  Spirit  that  animated  Paul.  Thus  the  values,  for 
him,  are  not  in  the  mere  record,  but  in  its  inner  sig- 
nificance. Critical  historicity  in  the  modem  sense  he 
had  neither  the  will  nor  the  power  to  attain.  For  the 
assumption  that  he  was  an  eye-witness  is  no  longer  ad- 
missible. Applying  no  such  false  and  unfair  standard 
of  measurement,  attempting  neither  to  defend  every 
part  as  historical  fact,  nor  to  apologize  for  it  as  "  fic- 
tion," we  recognize  this  portrait  of  the  eternal  Christ  as 
a  portrait  of  the  heart.  The  ai-tist  "  paints  the  thing 
as  he  sees  it  " ;  but  he  sees  it  with  the  eye  of  the  spirit 
"  under  the  aspect  of  the  etemt;!."  His  closing  words 
of  blessing  upon  those  who  have  not  seen,  and  yet  have 
believed,  have  to  my  mind  all  the  meaning  of  an  utter- 
ance of  one  who  takes  them  to  himself  personally.  This 
evangelist,  like  ourselves,  had  to  take  his  evidence  of  a 
glorified  Christ,  conqueror  of  death,  from  others.  He 
accepts  it  as  sufiicient ;  but  if  it  were  shown  in  any  given 
case  to  be  fallacious,  Christ  would  still  be  to  him  the 
source  of  a  divine  and  eternal  life,  known  to  inward 
experience.  This  is  that  eternal  life  of  which  he  de- 
clares that  it  was  with  the  Father  and  was  manifested, 
a  divine  power  for  us  to  see,  to  bear  witness  to  and  to 
declare,  bringing  men  into  the  true  fellowship  with  the 
Father,  the  fellowship  of  self-dedication  in  love  and 
service  to  the  triumph  of  the  reign  of  God.  In  a  sense 
the  witness  is  all  the  greater  if  this  evangelist  speaks 
to  us  from  an  age  already  remote  from  what  we  call  the 
"  historic  Jesus."     The  Spirit  of  Jesus  which  "  ener- 


224  JESUS    AND    PAUL. 

gized  in  "  Paul  had  energized  in  him  also.  He  was  not 
remote  from  the  eternal  Christ,  and  he  knows  it.  Per- 
haps he  could  afford  to  regard  as  knowledge  much  that 
was  not  so,  and  to  lack  knowledge  of  some  things  that 
we  count  important,  if  he  could  truly  make  such  a  con- 
fession of  religious  faith  as  this :  "  We  know  that  the 
Son  of  God  is  come,  and  hath  given  us  an  understand- 
ing, that  we  know  Him  that  is  true,  and  we  are  in  Him 
that  is  true,  in  His  Son  Jesus  Christ." 


LECTURE  IX 

THE    MESSAGE    OF    THE    FOURTH    EVANGELIST 

1.  The  Use  of  Material 

In  our  consideration  of  the  general  structure  of  the 
Ephesian  Gospel,  I  pointed  out  that  its  main  body  con- 
sists of  the  story  of  the  public  ministry  in  Synoptic 
outline,  but  that  upon  this  it  superimposes  a  scheme  of 
the  great  religious  feasts  of  Judaism  with  typical 
"  signs  "  and  discourses  of  Jesus.  The  public  ministry 
begins  with  a  Passover  at  Jerusalem.  In  chapter  5  we 
have  a  second  visit  to  Jerusalem  with  "  sign  "  and  dis- 
course appropriate  to  Pentecost.  In  chapter  6  comes 
a  second  Passover,  this  time  spent  in  Galilee,  closing 
the  first  half.  After  this  follow  in  chapters  7-9  and 
10-12  visits  to  Jerusalem  at  Tabernacles  and  Dedica- 
tion respectively,  each  with  "  sign  "  and  discourse  ap- 
propriate to  the  feast  in  question.  At  this  point  the 
evangelist  introduces  a  well  marked  division  closing  the 
public  ministry.  Chapters  13-17  are  concerned,  like 
the  section  between  the  Prologue  (1:1-18)  and  the 
beginning  of  the  public  ministry  in  2:12,  with  dis- 
courses to  the  disciples,  which  have  a  more  esoteric 
character.  The  closing  chapters  (17-20)  present  a 
somewhat  altered  form  of  the  story  of  the  Passion  and 
Resurrection.  But  into  these  differences  of  the  narra- 
tive, great  as  is  their  interest  to  the  historical  critic,  I 
shall  not  enter. 

Thus  the  career  of  Jesus,  according  to  the  fourth 
Gospel,  covers  exactly  two  years,  each  period  beginning 
and    ending    with    Passover.     The    earlier    ministry 

225 


226  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

(chapters  2-6)  is  devoted  to  Judea,  Samaria,  and  Gali- 
lee, the  later  (chapters  7-12)  is  wholly  devoted  to 
Judea.  Jesus  is  depicted  in  the  three  discourses  of  the 
former  section  first  as  the  inaugurator  of  the  new  temple 
and  universal  worship  in  the  Spirit  (2  :  12-4:  54),  then 
as  the  inaugurator  of  a  new  Sabbath  under  greater  au- 
thority than  that  of  Moses  (chapter  5),^  finally  as  giver 
of  the  Bread  of  Life  (chapter  6).  In  the  Judean  min- 
istry he  appears  first  as  Light  of  the  World  (T-9),  then 
as  the  Good  Shepherd  that  layeth  down  his  Life  for  the 
Sheep  (10-12).^  Have  we  any  literary  parallel  that 
will  help  us  to  appreciate  the  general  method  and  pur- 
pose of  this  arrangement  ?  I  have  already  adduced  the 
five  "  Sermons  "  of  Matthew.  Perhaps  I  can  suggest 
a  parallel  that  will  be  still  more  helpful. 

Take  up  the  collections  of  Synagogue  discoui'ses  de- 
livered on  occasion  of  the  great  feasts  and  known  as 
piskoth;  or  take  up  better  still  the  Alexandrian  pane- 
gyric on  the  martyrs  of  Jewish  liberty  called  IV  Macca- 
bees, an  oration  for  the  feast  of  Dedication.  It  is  what 
x\mericans  would  call  a  Memorial  Day  address.  Here 
are  examples  of  what  continued  to  be  the  custom  in  the 
Christian  Church,  especially  in  churches  such  as  Ephe- 
sus,  where  we  know  observance  of  Passover  at  least,  and 
i^erhaps  others  of  the  gi'eat  Jewish  feasts,  was  continued 
in  Christianized  form  from  apostolic  times.  Of  similar 
type  is  the  "  Word  of  Exliortation  "  as  its  author  calls 
it,  known  to  us  as  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews.  It  also 
might  well  be  a  panegyric  for  the  feast  of  Dedication 
(or  Martyrs),  written  to  a  church  just  entering  the 
shadow  of  bloody  persecution.  It  has  a  Jewish  parallel 
in  II  Maccabees,  another  piskali  for  the  feast  of  Dedi- 
cation. Even  if  this  judgment  be  incorrect  as  regards 
Hebrews,  later  fathers  of  the  Church  afford  us  examples 

1  Displaced;   see  above. 

-•  10;   1-18  is  displaced  from  after  verso  25. 


THE    MESSAGE    OF    THE    FOTJKTH    EVANGELIST        227 

of  discourses  written  to  commemorate  the  "  Day  of 
Martyrs,"  Jewish  and  Christian.  We  can  imagine  the 
great  festal  discourses  on  which  our  fourth  evangelist 
has  based  the  body  of  his  work  to  have  been  originally 
sermons  of  this  type.  At  least  they  appear  to  me  to 
have  parallels  (as  respects  mere  literary  form)  in  these 
Jewish,  Alexandrian,  and  early  Christian  festal  exhor- 
tations, or  piskotli.  They  use  the  freedom  of  this  sort 
of  edifying  discourse  to  present  not  the  mere  language, 
but  the  mind  of  Christ;  and  the  setting  of  narrative 
which  frames  them  in  (perhaps  in  part  constructed  by 
a  later  compiler)  is  freely  adapted  to  the  same  purpose 
of  edification. 

Thus  far  I  have  spoken  only  of  the  main  body  of  the 
Ephesian  Gospel,  the  five  festal  discourses  of  the  public 
ministry.  Even  more  distinctive  and  characteristic, 
perhaps  more  instructive  and  uplifting,  is  the  outer  en- 
velope, the  introductory  and  closing  narrative  which 
presents  Jesus'  private  teaching  of  the  Twelve.  After 
the  prologue  we  have  an  introductory  section  corre- 
sponding to  the  narrative  introduction  to  the  first  great 
discourse  of  Matthew.  It  covers  a  period  of  six  days 
like  the  six  days  of  preparation  before  the  Transfigura- 
tion after  Peter's  Confession.  In  these  six  days  of 
the  calling  of  the  first  disciples  at  the  baptism  of  John, 
as  in  the  former  case,  the  subject  is  the  revelation  of 
the  Messiahship. 

They  form  a  substitute  in  this  Gospel  for  the  Syn- 
optic story  of  the  Baptism  and  Temptation,  and  the 
Calling  of  the  First  Disciples.  Instead  of  a  colloquy 
with  Satan  to  explain  the  higher  sense  in  which  the  title 
"  Son  of  God  "  is  to  be  taken,  John  the  Baptist,  and 
ultimately  Jesus  himself,  explain  it  to  the  disciples. 
The  six  days  begin  with  John's  witness  to  Jesus  as  he 
who  baptizes  with  the  Spirit,  the  (Isaian)  "  Lamb  of 
God  "  (d/Avos),  whose  martyrdom  and  intercession  really 


228  JESUS    AND    PAUL. 

effect  that  removal  of  the  sin  of  the  world  of  which 
John's  rite  is  merely  prophetic.  For  John  himself  is 
nothing,  not  even  Elijah,  merely  a  voice  crying  in  the 
wilderness  to  prepare  for  his  great  successor.  So  his 
disciples  are  directed  to  Jesus  and  learn  to  know  him 
first  as  the  Messiah.  The  evangelist  introduces  at  this 
point  his  parallel  to  the  Synoptic  story  of  the  Confes- 
sion of  Peter.  Here,  however,  while  Peter  receives  the 
surname,  it  is  Andrew  who  first  makes  the  confession, 
and  another,  apparently  one  of  the  sons  of  Zebedee, 
neither  of  whom  appears  in  the  Gospel  by  name,  is  the 
companion  of  Andrew.  The  final  step  is  taken  by  a 
disciple  completely  unknown  to  Synoptic  story,  Na- 
thaniel of  Cana,  who  confesses  Jesus  as  "  Son  of  God  " 
and  "  king  of  Israel."  But  Jesus  promises  them  a 
greater  revelation.  They  will  come  to  know  him  here- 
after as  Son  of  Man,  a  being  who  stands  as  Mediator 
between  man  and  God,  sei*ving  like  the  Logos  whom 
Philo  had  compared  to  the  ladder  seen  in  Jacob's  dream, 
as  the  means  of  intercourse  between  earth  and  heaven.^ 
So  this  evangelist  deepens  and  universalizes  the  promise 
given  to  the  Twelve  after  Peter's  confession  that  they 
shall  witness  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man  with  the 
holy  angels.  Finally,  as  the  seventh  day  begins  at 
Cana,  Jesus  "  manifests  his  glory  "  by  a  "  sign  "  which 
cements  the  faith  of  all  his  disciples.  It  is  a  Chris- 
tianized parallel  to  the  legendary  miracle  of  the  epiph- 
any, or  "  manifestation  "  of  Dionysus  the  Savior-god  of 
life  and  resurrection,  at  whose  birth  on  the  night  of 
Jan.  5-6  legend  related  that  water  changed  to  wine. 
Jesus  now  symbolizes  the  transition  from  religions  of 
form  to  the  religion  of  reality  by  changing  the  water 
of  "  the  Jews'  manner  of  purifying  "  into  life-giving 

•■^Jn.  1:51  follows  the  rendering  of  Gen.  28:12:  "  Lo,  the 
angels  of  God  ascending  and  descending  on  him"  {''bo"),  i.e. 
on  Jacob.  It  is  quite  doubtful  whether  it  is  affected  at  all  by 
Philo. 


THE    MESSAGE    OF    THE    FOUETH    EVANGELIST        229 

wine.  "  He  manifested  his  glory,  and  his  disciples  be- 
lieved on  him."  Such  is  the  Introduction  to  the  Gos- 
pel. In  the  text  of  Westcott  and  Hort  it  is  marked 
off  from  the  main  body  of  the  work,  like  the  discourses 
to  the  Twelve  in  the  upper  room  (to  which  I  next  pass) 
by  a  space  of  three  blank  lines.  Westcott  and  Hort  are 
often  found  in  such  matters  "  workmen  that  need  not 
be  ashamed,  rightly  dividing  the  word  of  truth." 

The  closing  third  division,  corresponding  to  the  Epi- 
logue of  Mt.  26-28,  is  likewise  limited  in  its  teacbiriji 
to  the  private  instruction  of  the  Twelve.  It  would  of 
course  be  superfluous  for  me  to  recall  to  you  the  contents 
of  the  farewell  discourses  of  the  upper  room,  the  prom- 
ise of  the  Paraclete,  the  parable  of  the  Vine  of  God,  and 
the  High-priestly  Prayer.  We  are  on  a  different  level 
here  from  the  Doom  chapter  of  the  Synoptic  Gospels, 
and  the  prayer  of  Gethsemane.  Even  the  Supper  is 
now  forgotten.  A  wholly  different  eschatology  has 
come  in.  We  are  in  the  atmosphere  of  Paul's  great 
chapter  to  the  Romans  (Rom.  8:18-39)  on  the  two 
intercessors,  the  Spirit  on  earth  and  the  risen  Christ 
who  pleads  for  us  in  heaven.  The  Second  Coming  is  no 
longer  a  "  manifestation  to  the  world  "  but  an  indwell- 
ing of  Christ  and  the  Father  in  those  who  obey  the  new 
commandment  of  love.  In  this  sense  the  Christ  ''  comes 
again  "  to  us ;  but  our  abiding-place  is  not  to  be  on  the 
earth.  There  are  other  mansions  than  these  in  the  Fa- 
ther's house.  To  depart  and  be  with  Christ  is  the  bet- 
ter portion,  as  in  the  later  epistles  of  Paul.  So  here, 
as  in  the  introductory  chapters,  the  Son  of  Man  doctrine 
is  transformed.  We  have  a  timeless  eschatology,  as  we 
have  a  timeless  Christ.  We  have  a  vine  of  God  bearing 
fruit  in  all  the  world  through  the  vitalizing  current  of 
the  Spirit  of  Jesus,  just  as  in  Paul's  great  Epistle  of  the 
Unity  of  the  Spirit,  the  world  is  brought  into  a  brother- 
hood of  order  and  peace  by  agency  of  an  organism  vital- 


230 


JESUS    AND    PAUL 


ized  by  the  Spirit  which  courses  from  head  to  members. 
In  John  the  eternal  life  is  conceived  individually.  It 
is  a  present  indwelling  of  God  in  each  regenerate  soul, 
not  admission  hereafter  into  a  kingdom  of  life,  the 
reign  of  the  Messiah. 

The  climax  of  this  esoteric  teaching  is  reached  in  the 
Highpriestly  Prayer  (chapter  18)  in  which  Paul's 
hymn  of  life  in  the  Spirit  in  Rom.  8,  and  his  paean  of 
thanksgiving  in  Eph.  1 :  1-14  are  raised  to  still  loftier 
tones,  expanding  the  Synoptic  promise  of  the  Paraclete 
(Mt.  10:  18-20).  The  Son  is  now  to  be  glorified;  he 
prays  that  those  whom  God  has  called  and  "  sanctified  " 
may  be  conformed  to  his  own  image,  that  he  may  be  the 
firstborn  of  many  brethren.  Religious  insight  and  as- 
piration have  never  risen  to  higher  flights  than  these  of 
the  Farewell  Discourse  and  the  Highpriestly  Prayer. 

[I  ^  would  gladly  linger  in  this  holy  of  holies  of  the 
fourth  Gospel,  but  to  have  any  just  sense  of  the  general 
structure  we  must  return  to  consider  its  main  body,  the 
story  of  the  public  ministry. 

It  is  only  by  accommodation  that  we  can  speak  of  a 
Galilean  ministry  in  the  fourth  Gospel ;  for  the  majority 
of  the  scenes  even  in  chapters  2-6  are  not  in  Galilee,  but 
in  Judea  and  Samaria.  The  story  opens  with  a  paral- 
lel to  the  Synoptic  scene  of  the  Purging  of  the  Temple. 
Jesus  thus  presents  himself  publicly  from  the  outset  as 
vested  with  supreme  authority  to  effect  reform  at  the 
center  of  the  national  religion,  and  offers  as  a  sign  the 
resurrection  of  his  botly.  Of  course  the  evangelist  here 
completely  disregards  the  historical  sequence  of  events, 
but  that  is  habitual  with  him,  since  he  is  really  ad- 

4  The  section  enclosed  in  [  ]  which  here  follows  was  added  to 
adapt  the  lecture  to  the  requirement  of  the  Summer  School. 
Lecture  VIII,  which  formed  the  last  of  the  original  series  on 
"Jesus  and  Paul,"  closed  with  the  Ketrospect  which  now  follows 
the  added  section  at  p.  249. 


THE    MESSAGE    OF    THE    FOURTH    EVANGELIST        231 

dressing  his  contemporaries,  to  whom  the  claims  of 
Jesus  to  this  authority  are  as  well  known  as  the  resur- 
rection which  supports  it.  The  writer  is  completely 
indifferent  to  the  charge  of  anachronism,  or  hysteron- 
proteron,  which  modern  opponents  bring  against  him  for 
representing  the  Baptist,  the  earliest  disciples,  Nico- 
demus  and  the  Samaritans  as  all  freely  discussing  the 
claims  of  Jesus  to  Messiahship  in  the  highest  Christian 
sense;  because  it  is,  so  to  speak,  an  understood  thing 
in  his  time,  that  the  discussion  turns  on  the  merits  of 
the  case.  The  particular  narrator's  order  and  way  of 
depicting  the  scenes  is  regarded  with  indifference. 
These  claims  were  the  claims  of  Jesus.  They  are  thus 
supported.  What  matter  whether  the  story  which  pro- 
pounds them  be  placed  at  the  beginning,  as  required  by 
logic,  or  at  the  end,  as  required  by  the  mere  sequence 
of  history.  I  can  imagine  the  fourth  evangelist  struck 
with  amazement  at  the  petty  and  trifling  quibbles  of  a 
modern  criticism  which  expecis  him  to  follow  mere 
chronological  order  in  his  narrative.  It  suited  his 
pedagogic  purpose  to  transfer  this  story  of  Jesus'  chal- 
lenge to  the  temple  authorities  to  the  beginning.  It 
gave  him  incidentally  a  chronological  point  of  attach- 
ment to  secular  history  similar  to  Luke's,  by  establishing 
a  synchronism  between  the  birth  of  Jesus  and  Herod's 
reconstruction  of  the  temple.  He  follows  the  ancient 
tradition  known  to  "  the  elders  "  quoted  by  Irenaeus, 
but  displaced  by  the  Lukan  chronology,  that  Jesus  was 
upwards  of  forty  when  he  began  his  ministry,  and  dates 
his  birth  in  18  b.  c.  Why  should  there  be  more  ob- 
jection (he  might  say)  to  his  depicting  it  as  beginning 
with  the  well  known  scene  in  Jerusalem,  than  to  Luke's 
transfer  for  similar  literary  reasons,  of  the  Rejection  in 
Xazareth,  to  take  the  place  of  Mark's  Sabbath  in  Ca- 
pernaum as  the  opening  scene  ? 

Thus  introduced  at  Jerusalem,  the  work  of  Jesus  con- 


232  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

tinues  until  after  the  imprisonment  of  the  Baptist  in 
Judea.  It  passes  next  to  Samaria;  only  in  the  third 
place,  and  for  two  selected  scenes,  the  healing  of  the 
Nobleman's  Son  and  the  Miracle  of  the  Loaves  and 
Walking  on  the  Sea,  is  it  located  in  Galilee.  Jesus' 
brethren,  in  fact,  speak  of  his  disciples  as  "  in  Judea," 
and  urge  him  to  go  there  to  demonstrate  his  claims. 
Jesus  himself,  it  is  explained,  went  to  Galilee  because 
"  a  prophet  is  of  no  repute  in  his  own  country."  He 
continued  there  longer  than  he  otherwise  would  because 
in  Judea  "  the  Jews  sought  to  kill  him."  Thus  does 
our  evangelist  answer  the  ancient  Jewish  taunt  of  his 
Galilean  origin,  a  taunt  which  is  voiced  by  Celsus,  tlie 
second-century  opponent  of  Christianity,  in  the  form: 
If  he  was  a  world-redeemer,  or  even  the  Messiah  of  the 
Jews,  why  did  he  hide  himself  in  a  corner  among  a  few 
obscure  and  ignorant  rustics  ? 

But  what  use  does  the  preacher-apologist  make  of 
his  selected  material  ?  —  The  three  panels  of  the  suc- 
cessive scenes  in  Judea,  Samaria  and  Galilee  have  each 
a  figure  of  typical  character,  off-setting  the  figure  of 
Jesus,  and  illustrating  in  the  dialog-ue  the  attitude  to- 
ward him  assumed  by  his  hearers  in  these  respective 
regions.  In  Judea  it  is  Nicodemus,  who  becomes  a 
disciple,  "  but  secretly  for  fear  of  the  Jews."  In  Sa- 
maria it  is  the  sinful  woman,  who  with  "  many  "  of  her 
compatriots  openly  welcomes  him  as  "  the  Christ,  the 
Savior  of  the  world."  In  Galilee  it  is  the  Nobleman, 
who  is  convinced  by  miracle,  but  of  whom  Jesus  says  in 
conjunction  with  his  fellow-countrymen:  "Except  ye 
see  signs  and  wonders  ye  will  not  believe."  There  is  no 
representative  of  the  Gentile  world,  because  the  fourth 
evangelist  holds  (as  against  Mark,  and  far  more  con- 
sistently than  Luke)  to  the  principle  that  Jesus  pur- 
posely confined  his  work  to  his  own  people.  He  has 
indeed  "  other  sheep  not  of  this  fold,"  but  other  pro- 


THE    MESSAGE    OF    THE    FOURTH    EVANGELIST        233 

vision  is  made  for  them.  Only  at  the  close  of  the  min- 
istry do  "  certain  Greeks  "  make  their  appeal,  and  they 
are  answered  in  terms  closely  recalling  the  Pauline  doc- 
trine that  the  cross  was  the  means  whereby  the  law,  the 
"  middle-wall  of  partition,"  the  "  enmity  "  between  Jew 
and  Gentile,  was  broken  down.  Jesus'  reply  to  the 
Greeks  is :  "  This  corn  of  wheat  must  fall  into  the 
ground  and  die,  else  it  abideth  alone,  and  I,  if  I  be 
lifted  up,  will  draw  all  men  unto  me,"  For  this  reason, 
I  think,  the  "  nobleman  "  whose  son  is  healed  in  Ca- 
pernaum is  not  (as  in  Matthew  and  Luke)  a  Gentile, 
but  a  type  of  Galilean  believers;  while  the  Woman  at 
the  Well,  to  whom  Jesus  expounds  the  doctrine  of  uni- 
versalism  as  in  Mk.  7 :  24-30  to  the  believing  Syro-phoe- 
nician,  is  not  a  Canaanite,  but  only  a  Samaritan.  In 
the  symbolism  of  Luke,  who  omits  the  incident  of  the 
Syro-phoenician,  Samaritans  play  a  similar  part.  Let 
us,  then,  look  brie%  at  the  dialogues  with  Nicodemus, 
the  Samaritan  Woman,  and  the  Galilean  ITobleman  re- 
spectively. 

The  subject  of  the  dialogue  with  !N^icodemus  is,  as  I 
have  already  noted,  the  Baptism  of  Regeneration  by 
Water  and  the  Spirit,  and  Justification  by  Faith  in  the 
Crucified  Son  of  God.  These  are  the  two  vital  doc- 
trines of  Christianity  as  expounded  by  St.  Paul,  par- 
ticularly in  Romans ;  the  special  doctrines  which  chiefly 
differentiate  the  new  revelation  from  Judaism.  J^ico- 
demus  is  a  name  known  to  us  in  Rabbinic  literature  in 
the  form  ISTaq-Dimon.  He  appears  only  as  the  wealthi- 
est resident  of  Jerusalem  in  this  period,  one  who  was 
specially  remembered  for  his  benefaction  to  poor  pil- 
grims to  the  temple  by  having  provided  for  them  baths 
of  purification  free  of  cost.  In  the  Gospel  he  seems  to 
be  representative  of  men  like  Gamaliel,  or  Joseph  of 
Arimathea,  well  disposed  toward  Jesus  as  "  a  teacher 
come  from  God,"  but  even  though  "  teachers  of  Israel  " 


234  JESFS    AND    PATTI^ 

ignorant  of  certain  first  principles  of  the  faith,  these 
teachings  of  baptisms. 

Why,  then,  is  it  so  important  for  the  fourth  evangelist 
to  introduce  them  into  his  Gospel  ?  Let  us  reflect  on 
how  little  we  should  get  from  the  Synoptic  Gospels  alone 
of  the  significance  which  Paul  and  all  the  Pauline 
churches  attached  to  baptism  as  the  supreme  expression 
of  the  convert's  faith,  his  participation  by  a  moral  death 
and  resurrection  in  the  atoning  sacrifice  of  Jesus.  To 
them  it  was  the  "  laver  of  regeneration  "  (Titus  3:5), 
wherein  the  believer  was  adopted  by  the  Spirit  and 
made  a  son,  an  heir  of  eternal  life.  It  was  a  spiritual 
circumcision,  a  "  seal  "  of  the  promise  of  God.  Con- 
sider this,  and  I  think  you  will  hardly  need  to  ask  the 
question  why  supplementary  teachings  should  be  thought 
needful.  The  Synoptic  Gospels  refer  once  or  twice  to 
baptism  as  an  institution  of  John's  preaching  of  repent- 
ance. In  it  Jesus  participates  and  is  revealed  as  he 
who  will  baptize  in  the  Holy  Spirit.  Acts  refers  to  the 
fulfillment  of  this  promise,  without  explaining,  how- 
ever, how  the  rite  came  to  be  taken  over  by  the  Church. 
Matthew  supplies  in  part  the  explanation  by  reporting 
an  express  command  of  Jesus  to  baptize,  given  after  his 
resuiTection.  But  it  is  extremely  doubtful  if  any  gos- 
pel writing  known  to  the  fourth  evangelist  contained 
even  so  much  as  this  to  explain  the  most  fundamental 
of  Christian  rites."' 

The  Dialogue  with  Nicodemus  supplies  this  surpris- 
ing lack.  In  reply  to  Nicodemus'  proposal  to  class 
Jesus  with  other  heaven-sent  teachers  it  propounds  the 
Pauline  doctrine  of  new  birth  as  the  real  ground  of  ad- 
mission to  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  proceeds  to  base 
the  doctrine  on  the  authority  of  the  Son  of  Man  come 
from  heaven  in  order  that  he  may  be  lifted  up  before 

5  The  Gospel  of  Matthew  in  its  present  form  seems  to  have  been 
unknown  to  the  fourth  evangelist. 


THE    MESSAGE    OF    THE    FOURTH    EVANGELIST        235 

the  eyes  of  a  dying  race  "  as  Moses  lifted  up  the  ser- 
pent in  the  wilderness,  that  whosoever  hath  faith  in  him 
may  not  perish  but  have  everlasting  life."  Believers  of 
this  type  are  born  again  of  water  and  the  Spirit.  For 
them  there  is  no  more  judgment.  Those  who  disbelieve 
are  already  judged. 

The  six  verses  at  the  end  of  chapter  3  which  elaborate 
upon  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man  from  heaven,  the 
love  of  God  thus  manifested,  and  faith  in  Christ  as  the 
sole  ground  of  deliverance  in  the  judgment,  show  little 
or  no  connection  with  the  discourse  of  the  Baptist  in 
w.  22-30  to  which  they  are  attached.  They  are  really 
supplementary  to  this  part  of  the  dialogue,  whether 
transposed,  displaced  by  the  insertion  of  vv.  23-30,  or 
themselves  attached  by  a  later  hand.  At  all  events  you 
will  find  them  more  intelligible  as  a  continuation  of  the 
dialogue  with  Nicodemus  than  as  part  of  the  utterance 
of  John  the  Baptist.  They  further  develop  the  theme 
of  justification  by  faith  in  the  Son  of  God,  and  deliver- 
ance from  ^vrath  that  abides  on  the  unbelieving.  Along- 
side this  exposition  of  the  doctrine  of  new  birth  from 
the  Spirit,  justification  by  faith,  and  the  cross  as  a 
manifestation  of  the  love  of  God  to  a  perishing  world, 
a  means  by  which  those  who  look  to  it  in  faith  are  saved 
from  the  coming  judgment,  let  us  place  now  some  of  the 
leading  principles  of  Paul.  I  will  quote  them  con- 
secutively from  Romans.  "  Therefore  by  works  of  the 
law  shall  no  flesh  be  justified.  But  now,  apart  from 
law  a  way  of  justification  hath  been  manifested,  wit- 
nessed by  the  law  and  the  prophets,  even  a  justification 
from  God  upon  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  unto  all  that  be- 
lieve. For  God  set  him  forth  as  a  spectacle  in  his 
blood,  a  propitiatory  sacrifice,  to  make  known  His  own 
righteousness  in  the  remission  of  sins  that  are  past." 
"  For  God  commendeth  His  own  love  toward  us  in  that 
while  we  were  yet  sinners  Christ  died  for  us.     Much 


236  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

more,  then,  being  now  justified  by  his  blood  we  shall 
be  saved  from  the  wrath  through  him."  "  Know  ye 
not  that  as  many  of  us  as  were  baptized  into  Christ 
were  baptized  into  his  death  ?  We  are  buried  with  him 
by  baptism  into  death  that  like  as  Christ  was  raised  from 
the  dead  through  the  glory  of  the  Father  so  we  also 
should  walk  in  newness  of  life."  "  There  is  therefore 
now  no  judgment  to  them  which  are  in  Christ  Jesus, 
who  walk  not  after  the  flesh  but  after  the  Spirit.  .  .  . 
For  as  many  as  are  led  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  they  are 
the  sons  of  God.  .  .  .  For  the  Spirit  of  adoption  which 
teaches  us  to  cry  Abba,  Father,  bears  witness  with  our 
Spirit  that  we  are  bom  of  God.  He  that  spared  not 
His  own  Son,  but  delivered  him  up  for  us  all,  how  shall 
He  not  also  with  him  freely  give  us  all  things?  Who 
shall  lay  anything  to  the  charge  of  God's  elect  ?  It  is 
God  that  justifieth.  Who  is  he  that  condemneth  ? " 
Compare  these  great  utterances  of  Paul  on  justification 
by  faith  in  the  crucified  Son  of  God's  love,  and  baptism 
as  a  new  birth  in  the  Spirit,  with  the  dialogue  with 
Nicodemus,  realize  what  this  teaching  of  baptism  meant 
to  Pauline  Christians  and  I  think  it  will  scarcely  be 
needful  to  ask  why  the  great  unknown  disciple  of  Paul 
at  Ephesus  places  them  in  the  very  forefront  of  his 
Gospel.  And  if  we  realize  why  he  depicts  the  scene  as 
he  does,  we  may  be  less  disposed  to  raise  the  very  mod- 
era  objection  that  he  does  not  seem  to  be  presenting 
historic  fact,  but  only  eternal  truth. 

Verses  22-30,  which  compare  the  baptism  of  Jesus' 
disciples  with  that  of  John,  must,  so  far  as  I  can  see, 
be  treated  either  as  an  editorial  interpolation  like  the 
anti-Baptist  digressions  in  verses  6-8  and  15  of  the 
Prologue,  or  else  as  displaced.  If  we  place  them  after 
instead  of  before  verses  31-36  they  form  just  the  need- 
ful introduction  to  the  second  dialogue,  that  in  which 


THE    MESSAGE    OF    THE    FOURTH    EVANGELIST        237 

Jesus  expounds  tbe  doctrine  of  the  new  temple,  and 
worship  in  the  Spirit,  to  the  Samaritan  Woman. 

I  have  already  explained  why  this  evangelist  is  de- 
barred from  using  the  incident  of  the  Syro-phoenician 
(as  do  Mark  and  Matthew)  in  the  interest  of  his  uni- 
versalism,  and,  like  Luke,  can  only  fall  back  on  the 
quasi-Gentile  Samaritans.  The  descriptive  introduc- 
tion gives  some  of  the  strongest  evidence  we  have  that 
the  writer  had  actually  visited  the  scenes  described ;  but 
the  discourse,  starting  with  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  as 
"  living  water  "  and  proceeding  to  the  conclusion  that 
in  the  true  worship  in  spirit  of  God  as  spirit  all  distinc- 
tions of  race  or  local  shrine  must  disappear,  is  simply 
the  putting  in  dialogue  form  of  the  great  teaching  of 
Paul  in  Ephesians :  "  But  now  in  Christ  Jesus  ye  that 
sometime  were  '  far  off,'  aliens  from  the  commonwealth 
of  Israel,  are  made  ^  nigh '  by  the  blood  of  Christ  .  .  . 
for  through  him  we  both  have  access  in  one  Spirit  (out- 
poured alike  on  Jew  and  Gentile)  unto  the  Father." 

The  third  panel  of  the  Galilean  Ministry  covers 
verses  43-54  of  chapter  4,  introducing  the  figure  of 
the  Kobleman  of  Capernaum,  who  for  the  same  reason 
as  the  Samaritan  Woman  is  no  longer,  as  in  Matthew 
and  Luke,  a  Gentile,  but  who  represents  the  somewhat 
unstable  faith  of  Jesus'  Galilean  disciples,  a  faith 
based  on  their  experience  of  his  miracles,  which  did  not 
long  survive.  There  is  only  one  passing  reference  in 
Acts  (9:32)  to  "the  church  in  Galilee."  It  seems 
soon  to  have  become  extinct. 

The  proportion  of  consideration  given  to  Jesus'  work 
in  Galilee  in  John  might  seem  unduly  short;  but  with 
chapter  4  we  should  probahly  connect  immediately 
chapter  6,  which  begins,  "  After  these  things  Jesus  went 
away  to  the  other  side  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee,"  and  re- 
lates the  Miracle  of  the  Loaves,  the  Walking  on  the 


238  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

Sea,  and  Discourse  in  Capernaum.  The  intervening 
chapter  5  in  which  Jesus  goes  to  Jerusalem  to  a  feast 
(probably  Pentecost)  seems  to  be  displaced.  Many  au- 
thorities, reaching  back  to  and  including  Luther,  have 
come  independently  to  this  conclusion,  and  I  shall  take 
the  liberty  of  assuming  its  truth,  though  I  do  not  agree 
with  the  majority  of  these  authorities  in  regarding  the 
displacement  as  accidental,  but  regard  it  as  due  to  the 
editorial  revision  undergone  by  the  Gospel,  or  at  least 
by  its  material.  One  object  of  that  revision  seems  to 
have  been  to  introduce  the  special  warnings  against  too 
high  a  valuation  of  John  the  Baptist,  another  to  bring 
the  work  into  closer  harmony  with  Synoptic  tradition. 
Chapter  5  relates  the  Healing  of  a  Paralytic  and  a  de- 
bate with  "  the  Jews  "  as  to  Jesus'  authority  as  com- 
pared with  Moses',  a  debate  occasioned  by  his  disregard 
of  the  sabbath.  It  is  a  manifest  parallel  to  the  S}Tioptic 
section  Mk.  2 :  1-3 :  6,  which  of  course  precedes  the 
Miracle  of  the  Loaves  and  Walking  on  the  Sea.  Thus 
the  present  order  is  Synoptic.  But  in  John  the  course 
of  the  dialogue  indicates  that  the  occasion  is  really 
Pentecost,  the  feast  of  the  Giving  of  the  Law,  although 
the  name  of  the  feast  in  5 :  1  has  been  obliterated.  And 
if  the  occasion  be  really  Pentecost,  the  original  place  of 
chapter  5  will  have  been  immediately  after,  not  before, 
chapter  6,  which  deals  with  Passover  (ver.  4)  and  Un- 
leavened Bread  (vv.  30-59).  A  further  reason  for 
transposition  is  that  chapter  7  begins  with  a  reference 
to  Jesus'  walking  in  Galilee  because  of  the  threat  to  his 
life  in  Jerusalem  in  chapter  5,  and  continues  with  the 
account  of  his  next  going  up  to  the  autunm  feast  of 
Tabernacles. 

Postponing,  then,  chapter  5  and  its  controversy  with 
the  Jerusalem  scribes,  we  find  as  the  third  section  of  the 
Galilean  ministry,  the  Healing  of  the  Nobleman's  Son, 
followed  by  the  Miracle  of  the  Loaves,  the  Walking  on 


THE    MESSAGE    OF    THE    FOURTH    EVANGELIST        239 

the  Sea,  and  the  discourse  in  Capernaum  on  the  Bread 
of  Life  (4:  43-54;  6 :  1-71).  The  events  of  chapter  6 
are  appropriate  to  the  occasion;  for  it  is  declared  in 
verse  4  to  be  Passover,  or  the  Feast  of  Unleavened 
Bread.  x\ll  these  incidents  have,  of  course,  close  paral- 
lels in  the  Synoptic  record,  as  we  should  expect  of  scenes 
in  Galilee.  In  speaking  of  Synoptic  parallels*  I  do  not 
except  the  Discourse  in  Capernaum;  because  while  the 
theme  is  greatly  expanded  in  John  it  reproduces  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  meaning  of  the  saying  "  Beware  of  the 
Leaven  of  the  Pharisees  "  introduced  in  Mk.  8 :  10-21 
after  the  Feeding  of  the  Four  Thousand,  when  the 
Pharisees  encounter  Jesus  as  he  is  leaving  the  boat,  and 
where,  as  in  John,  they  demand  a  Sign  from  Heaven, 
^or  do  I  except  the  closing  paragraph  of  the  section 
(Jn.  6:60-70),  which  corresponds  to  the  Eebuke  of 
Peter,  related  by  Mark  almost  immediately  after 
(:Mk.  8:27-9:1). 

What,  then,  is  the  practical  —  or  shall  we  say  prag- 
matic —  motive  of  this  section  of  John,  the  only  one  to 
which  the  term  Galilean  ministry  can  properly  be  ap- 
plied ? 

I  have  already  suggested  that  the  key  to  the  intended 
application  of  the  incident  of  the  Healing  lies  in  the 
word  —  seemingly  so  harsh  —  placed  in  the  mouth  of 
Jesus :  "  Except  ye  see  signs  and  wonders  ye  will  not 
believe."  Even  harsher  and  more  uncalled  for  by  any- 
thing in  the  narrative  might  seem  the  saying  to  the' 
multitude  who  have  come  from  the  scene  of  the  Multi- 
plication of  Loaves  seeking  Jesus  in  Capernaum :  "  Ye 
seek  me,  not  because  ye  saw  miracles,  but  because  ye 
ate  of  the  loaves  and  were  filled."  The  Galilean  fol- 
lowing of  Jesus  does  not  seem  to  rank  high  in  the  esteem 
of  this  evangelist.  But  the  deprecation  of  that  type  of 
faith  which  seekg  after  a  sign  and  physical  benefits  is 
not  confined  to  this  passage,  nor  to  the  Johannine  writer. 


240  JESUS    AND    PAUL. 

The  fourth  evangelist  evinces  it  in  the  utterance  of  the 
believing  Samaritans  in  4 :  41  f.  It  appears  again  at 
the  close,  in  the  rebuke  of  Thomas'  unbelief,  followed 
by  a  blessing  on  those  who  believe  without  ocular  proof. 
But  there  is  no  innovation  here.  A  kindred  note  of 
equal  moral  elevation  marks  Paul's  deprecation  of  the 
Corinthians'  craving  for  the  spectacular  gifts  of  the 
Spirit,  and  commendation  of  those  which  will  long  out- 
last miracles  and  tongues,  the  gifts  of  faith,  hope,  and 
(above  all)  love. 

We  need  hardly  ask  why  the  evangelist's  selection 
from  the  rich  store  of  Galilean  tradition  is  limited,  after 
the  Healing  of  the  Nobleman's  Son,  to  the  Miracle  of 
the  Loaves  and  the  Walking  on  the  Sea.  These  form 
the  climax,  in  all  foi*ms  of  the  Synoptic  narrative,  of 
the  Galilean  ministry.  Already  in  Mark's  Gospel  there 
are  unmistakable  traces  of  a  symbolizing  tendency,  shap- 
ing the  form  into  closer  relation  with  the  events  of 
Passion-week,  and  Jesus'  triumph  over  the  gates  of 
Sheol,  as  well  as  other  traits  which  reflect  the  ritual 
of  the  Supper.  An  Ephesian  evangelist  could  hardly 
be  expected  to  accept  the  Roman  form  of  the  tradition 
made  dominant  by  Mark,  wherein  the  parting  supper  is 
constituted  a  Christian  Passover.  In  John  the  last 
supper  is  merely  an  ordinary  meal.  The  Passover  is 
eaten  without  participation  by  Jesus  or  his  disciples 
on  the  evening  of  the  day  of  crucifixion.  In  the  scenes 
of  the  upper  room  the  only  sacramental  feature  is  the 
washing  of  the  disciples'  feet.  However,  it  was  impos- 
sible that  an  evangelist  who  lays  such  stress  upon  the 
great  sacrifice,  Christ  as  the  atoning  Lamb  of  God,  the 
propitiation  for  our  sins  and  those  of  the  whole  world, 
and  who  makes  the  cross  the  very  goal  of  his  career, 
should  neglect  the  one  great  sacrament  of  the  Lord's 
o\vn  institution.  Strangely  one-sided  would  his  work 
have  appeared  in  his  own  eyes,  perhaps  even  Gnostic  in 


THE    MESSAGE   OF   THE  FOUETH   EfVANGELIST        241 

tendency,  if  after  the  full  exposition  of  the  significance 
of  Christian  baptism  in  the  Dialogue  with  Kicodemus 
he  had  given  no  interpretation  of  the  Supper  of  the 
Lord.  He  uses  the  occasion  of  the  Miracle  of  the  Loaves 
and  Walking  on  the  Sea,  already  partially  adapted  to 
this  purpose  in  Synoptic  narrative,  as  symbolic  of 
Jesus'  victory  over  death.  The  discourse,  on  the 
Bread  of  Life,  interprets  the  meaning  of  eating  the 
flesh  and  drinking  the  blood  of  the  Son  of  Man. 
Jesus  makes  this  a  condition  of  sharing  in  his  im- 
mortality. 

We  have  here  the  evangelist's  habitual  form  of  dia- 
logue, though  as  before  it  soon  passes  into  monologue. 
The  interlocutors  are  in  this  case  "  the  people  "  who 
have  followed  Jesus  to  Capernaum  from  the  scene  of  the 
Multiplication  of  Loaves,  and  who  (as  in  the  Synoptics 
and  also  in  the  opening  scene  of  the  Johannine  min- 
istry) demand  from  him  there,  as  he  is  teaching  in  the 
Synagogue,  "  a  sign  from  heaven."  This  time  Jesus 
gives  the  answer  of  the  Second  Source  in  its  Lukan 
form :  the  Son  of  Man  who  comes  from  heaven  is  himself 
the  sign,  as  was  Jonah  to  the  Ninevites.  He  is  the 
means  of  resurrection  also,  but  only  as  they  assimilate 
his  nature.  To  those  who  eat  his  flesh  and  drink  his 
blood  it  will  be  as  the  maima  which  Moses  gave  to 
Israel  in  the  wilderness,  a  true  bread  from  heaven,  a 
food  of  immortality.  He  declares  and  reiterates  in 
many  forms  the  assertion :  "  I  am  the  living  bread 
which  came  down  from  heaven;  if  any  man  eat  of  this 
bread  he  shall  live  forever,  and  the  bread  that  I  will 
give  is  my  flesh,  which  I  will  give  for  the  life  of  the 
world." 

Thus  far  we  have  a  manifest  blending  of  the  Synoptic 
story  of  the  Multiplication  of  Loaves,  Walking  on  the 
Sea,  and  Demand  for  a  Sign  from  Heaven,  with  Pauline 
teachings  on  the  effect  and  meaning  of  the  communion 


242  JESUS    AXD    PAUL 

of  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ.  Paul,  it  is  true,  had 
not  directly  employed  the  figure  of  the  manna,  any  more 
than  in  speaking  of  God's  "  setting  forth  "  Jesus  in  his 
blood  as  a  token  of  propitiation  to  the  eye  of  penitent 
faith  he  had  made  express  mention  of  the  brazen  ser- 
pent. The  specific  comparison  belongs  to  the  Ephesian 
evangelist.  So  with  respect  to  the  "  spiritual  meat  and 
drink "  supplied  from  heaven  to  those  who  followed 
Moses  into  the  wilderness.  Paul  stops  short  of  men- 
tioning the  "  spiritual  meat "  by  name  as  "  manna." 
He  says  that  "  the  spiritual  rock  from  which  they  drank 
was  Christ,"  and  merely  implies  the  same  regarding 
their  "  spiritual  meat."  The  evangelist  is  specific. 
Nor  does  he  stop  with  the  mere  addition  and  develop- 
ment of  this  link.  He  concludes  the  long  discourse  on 
the  Bread  of  Life  by  a  paragraph  describing  division 
among  Jesus'  disciples  as  to  the  meaning  of  his  words. 
Many  forsake  him  entirely  at  the  "  hard  saying."  To 
the  faithful  remnant  Jesus  explains  that  only  the  assimi- 
lation of  his  teaching,  the  words  that  transmit  his  spirit, 
are  the  real  food  of  immortality.  "  The  flesh  (the  opus 
operatum  of  the  rite)  profiteth  nothing " ;  his  spoken 
word  is  spirit  and  life. 

It  is  in  this  closer  distinction  as  to  the  meaning  and 
value  of  sacraments  that  we  trace  a  further  reason,  be- 
yond mere  enrichment  from  the  Pauline  Epistles,  for 
the  evangelist's  recast  of  Synoptic  story.  Here  the 
Johannine  Epistles  come  to  our  aid  with  their  denunci- 
ation of  the  prevailing  false  tendencies,  tendencies  kin- 
dred to,  if  not  derived  from,  the  mystery  religions. 
The  evangelist  deprecates  a  disposition  to  seek  immor- 
tality by  ritual  or  sacramental  act,  without  assimilation 
of  the  spirit  of  Jesus,  or  obedience  to  his  new  command- 
ment. 

I  can  only  briefly  characteri;^e  the  Dialogue  on  the 
Authority  of  the  Son  of  Man  in  chapter  5,  which  (as 


THK    MESSAGE    OF    THE    FOURTH    EVANGELIST        243 

already  pointed  out)  is  the  Joliannine  counterpart  of  the 
controversy  of  Jesus  with  the  scribes  in  Mark  2 :  1-3 :  6, 
and  may  for  that  reason  have  been  transposed  to  a  cor- 
responding place,  before,  instead  of  after,  chapter  6. 

We  infer  from  the  adaptation  elsewhere  of  the  Johan- 
nine  discourses  to  the  feasts  on  which  they  are  dated, 
that  the  missing  name  of  the  feast  in  verse- 1  (an  occa- 
sion of  considerable  variation  among  the  texts)  may 
be  supplied  as  ^  t^s  irevrrjKOdTrj^^  Pentecost,  the  feast  then 
regarded  as  commemorating  Moses'  giving  of  the  Law  at 
Sinai.  At  all  events  narrative  and  discourse  alike  cen- 
ter upon  Jesus'  defense  of  his  higher  authority  in  over- 
riding the  law  of  Moses  in  order  to  give  that  "  life  " 
which  the  Law  purported  to  bring,  but  Paul  had  de- 
clared it  could  not  give. 

The  incident  with  which  the  scene  opens  is  a  close 
parallel,  coinciding  even  in  phraseology,  with  the  open- 
ing scene  of  the  corresponding  section  of  Mark.  Jesus 
by  his  mere  sovereign  word  restores  a  helpless  paralytic. 
In  Mark,  it  is  true,  the  scene  is  Capernaum,  not  Jerusa- 
lem ;  and  the  Markan  debate  as  to  the  lav\?fulness  of  his 
healing  on  the  Sabbath  occurs  a  propos  of  another  heal- 
ing at  the  end  of  the  section  (Mk.  3:  1-6),  which  also 
includes  several  other  instances  of  objection  by  the 
scribes  to  Jesus'  disregard  of  religious  law  and  ordi- 
nance. The  issue,  however,  is  the  same  in  both  cases, 
"  the  Jews  persecuted  Jesus  and  sought  to  slay  him  be- 
cause he  did  these  things  on  the  sabbath."  To  some 
extent  even  the  line  of  defense  is  similar.  Jesus  ap- 
peals in  Mark  also  to  his  higher  authority  a.s  Son  of 
Man,  and  challenges  the  scribes  to  say  which  is  more 
truly  consonant  with  the  sabbath  law,  to  save  life  (as 
he  is  doing  with  his  healing  power)  or  to  kill,  as  they 
seek  to  do  in  plotting  against  his  life. 

Similarly  in  the  Johannine  discourse  Jesus  advances 
first  of  all  his  God-given  authority  as  Son  of  Man  and 


244  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

Judge  of  the  World  extending  to  life  and  death.  This 
claim  is  supported  by  two  witnesses.  These  do  not  in- 
clude John,  who  was  only  the  bearer  in  God's  mercy 
of  a  special  warning  to  the  Jews.  The  witnesses  are 
Jesus'  own  works,  and  the  testimony  in  Scripture  of 
Moses  and  the  prophets. 

Here  the  evangelist  envisages  the  great  problem  of 
Paul's  missionary  career:  How  reconcile  the  divine 
authority  of  the  Mosaic  revelation  with  the  new  economy 
of  grace  introduced  by  the  cross  ?  Mark  had  merely  op- 
posed the  Christian  authority  to  the  Mosaic  with  a  bald 
appeal  to  miracle :  "  But  that  ye  may  know  that  the 
Son  of  Man  hath  authority  to  remit  sin  as  judge  (verse 
28,  authority  over  the  sabbath)  rise,  take  up  thy  bed, 
and  walk."  The  fourth  evangelist  goes  deeper.  The 
eternal  life  which  the  Scriptures  are  supposed  to  convey 
is  not  there  if  they  are  treated  as  mere  rules  to  be  obeyed. 
If,  however,  they  are  taken  as  divine  witnesses  which 
point  to  him  they  will  lead  to  the  real  source  of  life.  In 
this  sense  Moses  and  Elias  are  his  witnesses.  Jewish 
unbelief  is  condemned  out  of  the  mouth  of  those  to 
whom  they  themselves  appeal.  I  have  said  that  this  ap- 
plication of  Paul's  contrast  of  the  revelation  of  life  with 
that  of  the  handwriting  of  ordinances  given  to  Moses, 
goes  deeper  than  Mark.  How  deep,  appears  only  when 
we  take  further  into  consideration  this  evangelist's 
identification  of  Christ  with  the  eternal  Logos  of  all 
revelation,  comparing  the  opening  words  of  the  Epistle, 
which  speak  of  Christ's  coming  as  a  manifestation  of 
"the  life,  even  the  eternal  life  which  was  with  the  Fa- 
ther and  was  manifested  unto  us."  Even  more  com- 
pletely than  in  Paul  all  bondage  of  the  letter  is  overcome 
by  the  principle  that  the  function  of  Scripture  is  simply 
and  solely  to  bring  men  into  contact  with  the  eternal 
Spirit  of  Truth  in  his  self-manifestation  throughout  the 


THE    MESSAGE    OF    THE    FOURTH    EVANGELIST        245 

generations.  All  authority  is  committed  to  the  eternal 
Son  of  Man.  That  of  Moses  and  the  prophets  is  not 
excepted. 

It  would  require  a  complete  commentary  on  the 
fourth  Gospel  to  deal  adequately  with  all  the  great  dis- 
courses, including  those  of  the  Judean  ministry.  I  can- 
not take  time  to  speak  of  the  Healing  of  the  Man  bom 
Blind  and  the  accompanying  discourse  on  Jesus  as  Light 
of  the  World  given  at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles  with 
its  ceremonial  of  illumination.  It  occupies,  as  you 
know,  chapters  7-9,  and  is  of  an  increasingly  polemic 
character  as  the  threats  against  Jesus'  life  become  more 
frequent  and  menacing.  I  can  only  ask  you  to  compare 
with  Jesus'  rejection  in  8 :  33  ff.  of  the  Jews'  claim  to 
freedom  as  the  seed  of  Abraham  with  Paul's  compari- 
son in  Gal.  4:  21-31,  where  the  free  seed  of  Abraham 
according  to  the  Spirit  are  opposed  to  the  fleshly  seed, 
who  are  children  of  the  bond-woman  Hagar,  and  who 
prove  their  Ishmaelite  descent  by  persecuting  those  who 
have  been  born,  as  Isaac  was,  through  a  word  of  prom- 
ise. You  should  also  compare  Rom.  6 :  16  on  servitude 
to  sin. 

The  fifth  and  last  of  the  festal  discourses,  perhaps 
the  greatest  of  all,  is  placed  at  Dedication,  the  feast  of 
the  Maccabean  martyrs  who  had  given  their  lives  for  the 
faith.  By  a  slight  displacement  its  opening  paragraph, 
the  parable  of  the  Good  Shepherd  who  giveth  his  life 
for  the  sheep,  has  become  interwoven  with  the  saying 
about  the  Door  of  the  Sheep  in  10 :  1-18.  Restoring 
this  parable  after  verse  22,  where  Jesus  comes  to  Jerusa- 
lem at  Dedication,  we  find  a  consistent  whole.  The 
"  sign  "  of  this  feast  of  the  resurrection  (for  such,  as 
we  see  from  Fourth  Maccabees,  Dedication  had  come 
to  be)  is  the  raising  of  Lazarus ;  for  Lazarus  (i.  e., 
Eleazar)  is  the  Maccabean  martyr-hero  of  the  resurrec- 


246 


JESUS    AND    PAUL. 


tion.  The  discourse  centers  in  the  well-known  comfort 
to  Mary  and  Martha  iu  the  scene  at  Bethany,  where 
Jesus  presents  himself  as  "  the  resurrection  and  the 
life,"  something  better  than  rising  again  "  at  the  last 
day."  Thereafter  the  Jews  gather  in  council,  and  re- 
solve to  put  Jesus  to  death  following  the  pregnant  ad- 
vice of  Caiaphas :  "  It  is  expedient  for  us  that  one  man 
die  for  the  nation." 

Surely  it  is  needless  for  me  to  adduce  a  motive  for 
this  expansion  or  elaboration  of  Synoptic  story.  Syn- 
optic story  has  practically  no  teaching  on  the  all-im- 
portant question  of  bereaved  souls.  It  accepts  the 
Pharisean  doctrine  of  resurrection  and  tells  of  Jesus' 
answer  to  the  Sadducean  objection.  It  also  relates  the 
story  of  the  Empty  Tomb.  But  of  the  Pauline  doctrine 
of  eternal  life  in  Christ  it  is  as  silent  as  of  the  incident 
of  the  raising  of  Lazarus  itself.  A  gospel  intended  for 
a  Pauline  church  could  not  overlook  this  deficiency. 
From  what  source  the  evangelist  drew  the  story  we 
know  not.  We  do  know  that  he  has  framed  into  it 
such  "  words  of  eternal  life  "  as  come,  not  indeed  in  the 
mere  language,  but  in  vital  truth,  from  Christ  alone. 
Only  an  imsympathetic  mind  can  prevent  our  recog- 
nizing in  this  great  discourse  on  the  Pesurrection,  the 
hand  and  voice  of  one  who  with  tlie  disciples  of  Paul 
had  found  in  the  living,  eternal  Christ  one  who  "  brings 
life  and  immortality  to  light  through  the  gospel." 
Should  he  not  give  to  the  Church,  in  whatever  literary 
form  he  could  best  express  it,  his  sense  of  this  highest 
teaching  of  the  Lord  ? 

2.  Values  Past  and  Present 

Such  sui'vey  of  the  Gospel  as  the  time  permitted  we 
have  now  made.  How  shall  we  express  the  message  of 
the  evangelist  to  his  own  times  and  to  ours  ? 

Nothing,  perhaps,  comes  with  greater  surprise  to  the 


THE    MESSAGE    OF    THE    FOUBTH    EVANGELIST        247 

reader  of  the  fourth  Gospel  who  approaches  it  with  a 
mind  emptied  of  all  prepossession,  than  the  freedom 
with  which  its  author  has  cut  loose  from  the  already 
half-stereotyped  Synoptic  outline,  and  has  dipped  boldly 
into  the  broad  and  often  turbid  stream  of  tradition  for 
material  adapted  to  his  purpose.  An  extraordinary 
license  was  accorded  in  his  age  to  the  preacher  to  em- 
ploy allegory,  myth,  symbolism,  legend,  parable,  what- 
ever he  will,  in  the  interest  of  religious  edification. 
But  we  must  include  also  a  share  of  that  spirit  of  Paul, 
which  made  the  great  Apostle  turn  from  the  intercourse 
we  should  have  expected  him  to  seek  among  those  who 
had  been  apostles  before  him  in  Jerusalem  in  order 
first  to  "  go  away  into  Arabia  "  and  thereafter  begin 
preaching  the  gospel  not  from  man,  the  message  which 
had  come  to  him  "  in  the  spirit."  Only  thus  can  we 
account  for  so  bold  a  dependence  on  the  insight  of  faith, 
the  vision  of  those  who  have  not  seen,  and  yet  have  be- 
lieved. We  do  know,  however,  that  there  were  others 
in  this  writer's  day  who  used  equal  liberty  with  the 
sacred  story,  yet  without  this  writer's  insight  into  its 
moral  and  religious  values ;  and  it  is  in  relation  to  these 
"  Gnostics  falsely  so-called "  multiplying  myths  and 
legends  and  fantastic  speculations,  that  we  must  view 
his  work.  Surely  it  deserves  to  be  considered  the  great 
Christian  product  of  his  age,  perhaps  the  greatest  of 
any  age. 

I  have  made  special  effort,  as  I  cast  this  hasty  sur- 
vey over  the  contents  of  the  Gospel,  to  show  you  its 
completely  Pauline  character.  It  does  with  the  story 
of  Jesus  what  we  might  expect  Paul  to  do  had  he  lived 
to  meet  the  dangers  of  that  hour.  Or  perhaps  I  should 
rather  say  that  it  selects  certain  outstanding  elements  of 
the  story  in  order  to  suffuse  them  with  the  glow  of 
Paul's  spiritual  interpretation  of  the  whole.  The  in- 
carnation of  the  eternal,  redeeming  Wisdom  of  God; 


248  JESUS    AXD    PAUL 

the  atoning  Lamb  that  bears  the  sin  of  the  world ;  Bap- 
tism as  a  new  birth  in  the  Spirit  for  those  justified  by 
faith  in  the  Son  of  God  lifted  up  on  the  cross  as  a 
token  of  God's  redeeming  love;  the  new  Temple  as  the 
shrine  of  a  universal  worship  in  spirit  and  tnith,  access 
in  one  Spirit  to  a  common  Father;  the  Authority  of  the 
living  Word  over  against  Moses  and  the  Law;  Com- 
munion in  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  as  '*  spiritual 
meat  and  drink";  Freedom  of  the  spiritual  seed  of 
Abraham ;  Eternal  life  as  the  present  possession  of  the 
believer;  the  cioss  as  breaking  down  the  wall  of  par- 
tition ;  the  two  Paracletes  in  heaven  and  on  earth  —  all 
these  gTeat  Pauline  themes  have  been  woven  into  the 
gospel  texture,  And  not  only  so,  but  the  picture  as  a 
whole  has  become  the  picture  of  a  Christ  "  not  after 
the  flesh."  It  is  Paul  far  more  than  this  evangelist  who 
deserves  the  title  of  first  theologian  of  the  Church.  It 
is  Paul  who  should  more  justly  be  called  the  great 
Apostle  of  Love.  But  Paul  did  not  survive  till  the  age 
when  his  churches  found  it  necessaiy  to  bring  his  the- 
ology into  some  sort  of  accommodation  to  the  Galilean 
tradition  of  Jesus'  life  and  teaching;  and  while  Paul's 
churches  had  frequent  need  that  he  should  remind  them 
of  the  new  commandment  of  love  as  '^  the  fulfilling  of 
the  whole  law,"  there  had  not  yet  arisen  within  the 
Church  itself  a  great  systematic  impulse  toward  "  law- 
lessness," a  "  gnosis  that  puffs  up  "  devoid  of  the  "  love 
that  builds  up."  The  critical  hour  of  Gentile  Christi- 
anity was  when  forty  years  after  Paul's  death  the 
churches  of  Asia  lay  between  the  Scylla  of  reaction 
toward  Jewish  legalism  and  the  Charybdis  of  Gnostic 
theosophy.  We  owe  it  above  all  to  the  Ephesian  evange- 
list, that  it  found  a  clear  and  open  course  by  holding 
up  to  the  world  the  spiritual  Christ  of  Paul,  and  inter- 
fusing into  the  record  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  the 
Pauline  doctrines  of  grace.] 


THE    MESSAGE    OF    THE    FOURTH    EVANGELIST         249 

May  we  hold,  then,  that  there  is  still  need  of  the  gos- 
pel as  theology  ?  In  our  time  few  pay  homage  to  the 
fallen  Queen  of  the  sciences.  "  Religion  without  the- 
ology "  is  the  cry.  Too  often  it  means  only  that  the 
speaker  has  not  the  courage,  if  ho  has  the  ability,  to 
make  a  reasoned  statement  of  his  own  regarding  these 
deepest  questions  of  life,  and  has  lost  confidence  in  the 
capacity  of  his  fellow-men  to  do  it  for  him.  Too  many 
are  determined,  consequently,  either  to  go  without  a 
reasoned  faith,  or  to  fall  back  on  what  they  take  to  be 
the  reasoning  of  the  past.  Just  because  the  work  was 
so  grandly  done  at  Ephesus  for  the  second  century,  later 
generations  have  unduly  excused  themselves.  The  true 
lesson  of  the  great  Pauline  theologian  of  the  Johannine 
writings  is  not  the  imitation  of  his  language,  or  even 
of  his  forms  of  thought.  Still  less  is  it  the  fruitless 
attemj)t  to  make  his  ideas  our  own  precisely  as  they 
stand.  Our  lesson  from  this  unknown  successor  of 
Paul  should  be  the  imitation  of  his  courage  and  the 
freedom  of  his  faith.  We  should  learn  from  him  to  do 
again  for  our  age  what  he  did  for  his. 

The  glimpses  that  we  get  of  the  inner  history  of 
Ephesus,  the  great  metropolis  of  the  Pauline  churches, 
shows  as  one  of  the  most  significant  phenomena  of  its 
earliest  years  the  turning  of  a  community  of  disciples 
of  the  Baptist  under  Pauline  tutelage  to  a  baptism  of 
the  Spirit,  a  baptism  into  the  name  of  Jesus  as  the  Son 
of  God.  Its  latest  years  were  marked  by  the  incoming 
of  gTievous  wolves  not  sparing  the  flock,  a  teaching  of 
Antichrist,  threatening  to  sweep  away  the  whole 
Church  from  its  relation  to  the  historic  Jesus.  Asiatic 
Christendom  was  in  danger  of  forsaking  the  way  of 
"  reconciliation  "  by  moral  self-dedication  to  the  God 
whose  nature  is  unconquerable  love,  and  of  entering  the 
delusive  paths  of  g-nosis.  I  have  thought  sometimes  it 
were  well  to  write  over  the  superscription  of  the  Fourth 


250  JESUS    AND    PAUL 

Gospel  the  two  texts  that  tell  the  history  of  that  church. 
We  have  first  the  story  in  Acts  of  the  winning  of  Apollos 
the  learned  Alexandrian  Jew  and  the  company  of  dis- 
ciples of  John  that  were  with  him,  to  the  Pauline  doc- 
trine of  Life  in  the  Spirit.  So  the  first  disciples  in  the 
opening  scene  of  this  Gospel  are  won  to  the  Greater  than 
John  that  came  after  him.  We  might  put  after  that 
the  utterance  of  the  subjoined  Epistle  against  the  de- 
niers  of  the  word  of  the  cross :  "  This  is  he  that  came 
by  water  and  by  blood,  even  Jesus  Christ ;  not  with  the 
water  only,  but  with  the  water  and  with  the  blood." 
Historical  appreciation  of  the  development  of  Christi- 
anity at  Ephesus  between  the  periods  to  which  those 
two  texts  refer  would  make  us  better  realize  the  service 
done  to  the  eternal  truth  by  the  unknown  author  of  this 
"  spiritual  Gospel."  In  it  the  evangelist  has  made  a 
restatement  for  his  own  age  of  the  whole  gospel  of  the 
Church,  including  both  that  of  the  Galilean  disciples 
and  that  of  Paul.  He  gives  an  account  to  his  own  age, 
in  the  modes  of  thought  that  belong  to  that  age,  of  the 
meaning  of  the  story  of  Jesus,  when  looked  at  from  the 
view-point  of  the  eternal.  Is  it  not,  then,  worth  while, 
when  we  read  the  Epistles  and  Gospel  of  John,  first  to 
understand  as  if  we  belonged  to  that  age,  and  then  to 
follow  their  writer's  example,  remembering  our  own 
age,  and  the  duty  of  bringing  home  to  it  both  the  Jesus 
of  history,  and  the  Christ  of  faith  ? 

Thus  we  return  to  our  starting-point.  There  is  no 
greater  service  men  like  ourselves  can  do  for  our  age 
than  to  sweep  away  the  fogs  and  obscurities  which  gather 
round  the  figures  of  Jesus  and  of  Paul.  Jesus  and 
Paul  are  champions  of  the  only  gospel  that  has  real 
promise  for  our  struggling  world.  But  we  nnist  see 
Jesus  as  Paul  saw  him,  the  embodiment  of  an  eternal 
agency  of  the  redeeming  God.  And  of  all  writers, 
sacred  or  profane,  who  if  we  take  their  point  of  view 


THE    MESSAGE    OF    THE    FOURTH    EVANGELIST        251 

are  competent  to  bring  us  into  contact  with  Jesus  and 
Paul,  there  is  but  one  whom  the  Church  has  justly 
crowned  as  their  spiritual  interpreter.  The  "  higher 
synthesis  "  of  Jesus  and  Paul  belongs  to  the  Ephesian 
evangelist;  for  he  bears  his  witness  to  the  story  of  the 
self-dedication  of  Jesus,  not  as  though  it  were  a  mere 
romance  of  martyrdom  for  the  kingdom's  sake,  but  as 
a  "  manifestation  of  the  life,  even  the  eternal  life,  which 
was  with  the  Father,  and  was  manifested  unto  us." 
His  joy  we  make  full  when  we  enter  into  fellowship 
with  him  by  declaring  to  the  world  this  eternal  Christ. 
"  Yea,  and  our  fellowship  is  with  the  Father,  and  with 
His  Son  Jesus  Christ." 


PRINTED   IN    THE    UNITED    BTATEB    OF   AMERICA 


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